


A Strange House in Chelsea

by katesfolly



Series: Sinking Is Just Like Falling [1]
Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: BAMF!John, Developing Relationship, Explicit Consent, F/M, First Time, Grief/Mourning, Hurt/Comfort, Johnlock - Freeform, M/M, Post Reichenbach, Romance, Sherlock's a mess, Slow Build, also kind of silly
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-17
Updated: 2013-05-29
Packaged: 2017-12-05 15:20:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 27
Words: 44,265
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/724780
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/katesfolly/pseuds/katesfolly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After he's lost Sherlock, nothing happens to ordinary John Watson....and then life gets very interesting again.  John's coping (barely) with Sherlock's loss, even though a part of him doesn't believe Sherlock's dead.  </p><p>Turns out, that part of him is right.</p><p>John and Sherlock reunite and are sequestered in a safe house in Chelsea while they try to work out how to put a stop to the constant threats on their lives, and try even harder to come to terms with what's passed between them, before and after the Fall.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> Un-beta-ed. If anyone wants the job, let me know, I'd love to have some other eyes on this. Mine are getting blurry!
> 
> Rated Mature for later chapters.
> 
> Thanks for reading!

There was a day in early September when his flatmate (his friend), the famous Sherlock Holmes, flung himself from the top of a building, four stories up. John watched that ridiculous coat and the stick-figure inside it flutter to ground with a jarring, unthinkable crunch, and then the medics were holding John up, and then holding him down. 

***

 

The details of Sherlock’s absence kept catching up with him at odd moments. Discovering a pair of thumbs in an olive jar in the door of the refrigerator opened a vortex in his chest that hurt so stunningly that he simply sat down on the floor where he was. He sat, and breathed, until Mrs. Hudson found him and forced him to have tea like any good Englishman in the midst of a breakdown.  

It wasn’t that he missed his flatmate’s bizarre kitchen habits, because, dear God, he really didn’t, but that the evidence suggested he hadn’t imagined it, Sherlock had been real, a raw orchestra of chemistry and biology and nerves. He’d left his thumbs behind to prove it.

He started guarding against those moments, making ridiculous workarounds, like frying toast in the skillet, because the toaster was just too fraught with memories of pushing toast on his recalcitrant flatmate.  

He’d lost both his parents before his 30th birthday, lost Harry to the bottle, lost patients all over the world and mates on the sandswept plains of Afghanistan, but he’d never lost a friend like Sherlock, because he’d never had one. 

Sometimes he thought that he might just be at his limit for loss. 

 

*** 

It was two weeks after, when Mycroft dropped by without warning.  John was still in his pajamas, making toast in the skillet (ridiculous).  He went to answer the door with spatula in hand, assuming it was Mrs. Hudson bustling up.  Instead he got an impeccably turned out Holmes.  He turned without a word and went back to his skillet.    
“You weren’t at the funeral.”   
“Noticed that, did you?” The toast sizzled a little.   
“I have come to check on Sherlock’s things.”

“Go ahead.”

John still had his back to Mycroft.

“I didn’t push him, you know.”   
“Just because you weren’t standing on the roof doesn’t mean you didn’t push him.  I’m not as much of an idiot as you two seem to think.”  John looked over his shoulder to see Mycroft drop his gaze, the weak morning light showing his face lined and wan, deflated as though by recent weight loss, though John fancied he actually saw a thickening around his middle. Mycroft headed for the bedroom. 

John ate, drank his tea, and finally Mycroft came back out, looking shaky, like a man who’s just had a round of the flu. He was, uncharacteristically, silent.   
“Taking off then?”   
“I’ll just take his violin.  You may do as you like with the rest.”

Sentiment. John could hear Sherlock’s dismissive voice.  His own inner cynic responded:  or greed.  It’s practically the only thing Sherlock owned that was worth something, unless you count his impossibly posh shoes. 

“Over there.”  John waved vaguely at a heap of detritus in the untidy corner of the room beyond the thinking couch.  There was a small shelf and end table which had both been overloaded with pieces of skeletons, reference books, camera equipment, and what looked like some plant specimens, and in the middle was a conspicuously clean stretch of floor about 30 inches long and 12 inches wide, just the size of a violin case. John sat up like a marionette pulled to attention. Not boring. His friend’s voice was purring in his ear.

He hadn’t noticed.  He had no idea when it had disappeared.  Mycroft read John’s face.  “Well.  No idea when it’d gone then?”

“None, I....I have no idea.”  John was completely shocked, which was interesting, in the Sherlockian sense, because the mind-altering depression was momentarily dulled by it.  “It was there, he played it, on, on the Tuesday.  Before.”  And, there it was again, that achy feeling inside his ribcage.   
Mycroft fussily hitched up his trouser legs and crouched to look closely at the floor.  Whatever he read there didn’t seem to satisfy him, but to John he suddenly looked more familiar, like he was planning his next move on eight separate chessboards instead of just . . . mourning.  “It seems there’s nothing for me to do here, then.”  He looked neutrally at John, which made him feel a bit bare, in his pajamas at 11 am.  Who knows what Mycroft read in his stubble and the way he’d taken off his watch but not his bracelet before bed?  What would Sherlock have seen?  Would he have acknowledged it?   
Collecting his umbrella, Mycroft paused at the door.  “Would you like me to send someone for his things?  I could...they could take care of it, perhaps while you are at the clinic one day.  If it would be...easier.”

John’s chest widened, then contracted at the thought of coming home from work one day to find Sherlock simply...gone from their flat.  “No, I.” Pause, breathe. “No, I’ll take care of it.”  

By this he meant, as soon as Mycroft left, he would find a way to fit that damned empty couch into Sherlock’s bedroom as well.

 

***

 

Three days later, John received an actual letter in the post, from a solicitor, explaining that Sherlock had left him a legacy.  The idea was alien; he couldn’t quite imagine the finality of it.  But there, in black and white, Sherlock had enumerated things to be left to John, the most surprising of which was quite a sizable quantity of cash. It was accompanied by the request that John retain the lodgings at Baker Street, and their contents, for a period of three years, even if he chose to live elsewhere. The violin was not mentioned.


	2. The Time After

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After the fall, John’s life moved forward in awkwardly spliced chunks, like a grainy b-movie normal-life montage. 

After the fall, John’s life moved forward in awkwardly spliced chunks, like a grainy b-movie day-in-the-life montage.  His therapist had told him that his life would stop blinking in and out, that the effect would fade with time. 

But one minute he was puzzling over Sherlock’s bequests, and then it was the pale, silent part of winter, and he was watching the dust settle itself in Baker Street. 

He was flicking the paper down, and Sherlock’s chair was empty, and a piece of John floated free, like a kite cut loose in a stiff wind, and he woke the neighbors by dragging the heavy chair into Sherlock’s room.

He was treating patients and filling out forms, conscientiously, like a drunk walking, so carefully, for ailments mostly attributable to loneliness, eating poorly, and/or drinking heavily. He wished that his patients had something he could actually fix.  

He was catching a cab in the rain and Not Thinking about Jefferson Hope or the day he forgot his cane, when they leaned breathlessly shoulder to shoulder against the dirty brick and laughed like loons. 

Time blinked, and a faded, heavy woman in a purple jumper was approaching him with Armistice Day poppies in hand. He watched her face change under the weight of his absolutely blank look.  He could swear the unit tattoo on his bad shoulder was burning and itching like it was brand new.  He felt like a veteran of a new war, the great war of London-town, fought two against the multitudes, with limited ground support from the Met.  He’d been separated from his unit and left to wander, incognito, amongst the enemy.    


And then it was early spring and he was back from Tesco's with absolutely no supplies that could be chemistry experiments, unless his next careful, not-a-drunk ration of scotch was considered. He vaguely enjoyed the way the handles of the heavy plastic bags cut into his hands. 

Feeling the little bite in his hands made him ditch the bags on the floor just inside the door of 221B (no thinking), and drop to do pushups until his arms were shaking.  As he got up, his heart beating hard, for once with a reason, he realized his keys had been under his left palm the whole time, and had made a raw red place in the center.

 

*** 

Time jumped, and he was out running at 0330 in a dark so damp and opaque it could only be London.

 

***

 

He was sitting behind an enormous pile of curry with a honey-haired woman on the other side, watching the red cubes hanging from her ears swinging in and out of the hollow of her hair as she gestured, and his face laughed and his belly clenched around the curry.

There were....conspiracy theories on his blog, and growing in the forums at the Science of Deduction. Sherlock faked his death, Moriarty was actually a master criminal, Moriarty was actually the split personality of actor Richard Brook, Moriarty was a morgue attendant with a morbid crush on Sherlock (Where did these people come from?). 

Once, right after it happened, he'd screwed up his courage and asked Mycroft, flat out, if he thought Sherlock could have faked his death. Mycroft ran a long hand, perhaps the only thing about him that resembled Sherlock, across his wide, tense mouth, looking nauseous, and shook his head.  The gesture was so out of character that John felt a hot stab run from tip of his breastbone, back to his spine.  He didn't ask again.  
   
****

 

He dropped by St. Bart's because Molly had a box of the detritus of Sherlock's experiments. She'd been so sweet over the phone, not wanting to throw anything away, even knowing there would be no temper tantrum from Sherlock. 

Still, walking down the familiar corridors, and more than anything, the smell--decay and disinfectant and chemistry and cleaning—took John back. He paused outside the door to the pathologists' office suites, one hand on his stomach, holding in the mess. When he did swing the door open, Molly was opening it from the other side, and they had an awkward collision.

"Oh, John. Yes." She moved her hair behind her ears, as she often did when nervous or uncomfortable--John was very familiar with nervous-Molly, thanks to Sherlock's antics.

He followed her back to her office, loitering in the doorway while she gathered a box from behind her desk. 

When she handed it to him, he didn’t look at her; his eyes were fixed on a little homemade sign tacked to her pinboard that says, in a twee font, "I believe in Sherlock Holmes."

Her eyes followed his. "Oh, ah, I just. I. It's just, out there, you know. I mean, we're all on a side, and, and that's mine. His side."

John found a smile somewhere, and said, "Me, too."

After that, he thought of himself that way; he was on Sherlock's side. 

 

****

 

One Thursday, he was said to Ella in his therapy session, “Nothing ever happens to me,” and turned his head.  No matter what, more had happened to him in the 21 months since the first time he’d said that than most people experienced in a lifetime.

And she said, again, “writing in the blog will help you adjust, John, to this new reality.”

He wasn't sure he was adjusting, exactly, but writing the blog was his way to say, "I believe in Sherlock Holmes."

And it made him feel alive, despite the strange disconnectedness, because at odd moments, an insistent urge overtook him to sit down and write.  He slowly wrote up the cases they’d worked, from sublime to ridiculous.  The Case of the Spotted Dog, the Gloria Scott, the Privet Hedge. Though he didn’t acknowledge it, he knew that he would someday run out of stories, so he slowed his production as much as he could, thinking over every turn of phrase, spending hours lying in his bedroom rehearsing sentences, remembering each detail as clearly as he could.  At first, he couldn’t bring himself to post them; the portraits seemed too intimate, the picture of Holmes too sharp-edged.

In a moment of weakness, he emailed one to Lestrade, a case they’d all worked together.  Not a full hour later he got a text.

You’ve got to post this one.  It’s a ruddy perfect portrait of the infuriating bastard.  If it’s not up in 24 hours, I’m emailing it to everyone who’s on admin leave with me.  
GL

I’m not sure he’d approve of the accuracy!  
JW

Though he’d been reasonably thorough in his stories while Sherlock was alive, John had never been so clear about his faults, foibles, and excesses, or about the sheer excitement of being in a room with such a whirlwind.  John suspected the egotistical git would not like his bad points shown off quite so effectively. 

Yeah, well, the wanker forfeited his right to bitch about it, didn’t he?  
GL

Greg had a point.  

John posted the story, and was pleasantly surprised to find his reading public desperate for more.  
   
****

 

He loaded his laundry into Mrs. Hudson's ancient washer and watching as the water turned murky around his old jeans and jumpers. 

He had started to push his body in new directions, just to see where it would go, experimenting, as it were, enjoying finding its limits in a way he hadn't since his time in the Army. 

There was a certain satisfaction in feeling pain that was physical rather than mental, feeling like an animal body again. The military had drilled into him the habit of regular meals, so even in the face of grief, rather than losing weight, he metamorphosed into a leaner, more muscular shape than he’d had since his injury. His body was reminding him what he was before, before Sherlock, before the bullet in his shoulder, before everything.   

The practical upshot was, he needed new clothes to accommodate new muscle. Though the sartorially precise Sherlock was not around to nag him, the discomfort of sitting in too-tight jeans was eventually enough to motivate him to order two pairs online and hope for the best, though not enough to motivate him to shop in an actual store.

When they came, he tried them on, bending and squatting to test for range of motion, and felt like a different man, or at least a turtle with a different shell.  Encouraged, he used a tiny bit of his legacy and bought a new jumper as well, thin and soft, with a v-neck and a clear high-plains-sky-blue color that reminded him of Afghanistan. He folded the old jeans, without thinking too much, and put them on the couch in Sherlock’s room, and closed the door.

 

***

 

He returned after work with the obligatory two bags from Tesco's, calling out to Mrs. Hudson that he'd picked up the sugar she needed. He froze as he heard the radio streaming in from the kitchen where she'd been working. 

It was an aching violin concerto, and John wasn't especially musically inclined, but he'd spent more than his fair share of time, mostly between midnight and 4 am, listening to everything from Shostakovich to the Scooby Doo theme out of Sherlock's violin, and, damn, if this didn't sound....he sank down on the sofa with the sugar bag on his knees like a fat baby.  Mrs. Hudson bustled out of the kitchen, wiping her hands on a little floral half-apron she had over a differently flowered top-and-pants set.  "Oh, dear." she put both slightly floury hands on her cheeks and sat beside him, "it is a bit like him, isn't it?" Her flour-dusty, papery hand rested on his, which rested on the sugar, which rested on his knee, and they sat like that until it was over, and the posh radio-announcer-voice said, "That was John Sigerson, on violin, with the Oslo Philharmonic, in a recent garden concert at the Petersen Botanical Garden in Oslo."     


"I keep thinking one of these days that door will bang open--he was always banging that door!--and he'll yell out 'Mrs. Hudson!' and everything will just go back to..."  She trailed off with misty eyes and John dredged up a wry little smirk for her.  "No, I suppose it was never quite normal, was it?"  

John went upstairs with an uncomfortable prickly feeling in the bottom of his feet. He did 50 pushups, just to show he could wait, then googled John Sigerson.

The LinkedIn profile gave a small, blurry picture of a caucasian man with conservatively cut brown hair and glasses, and a dark turtleneck that blended into the background, obscuring the line of neck and shoulder.  It could have been anyone, from John to the prime minister, and he dismissed it with a grumble, reading quickly through the rest of the profile.  Age, middle thirties, judging by the dates of schooling, various musical accomplishments, no teaching credentials, minimal connections, mostly to members of the Oslo classical music community, where he'd clearly come less than three months ago. 

Back to google. No facebook account, no directory information....he switched to images, and got a handful of full-body shots taken at the concert he'd just heard, a generic man in a tuxedo in front of a generic orchestra. He could almost hear Sherlock nudging him to pause, observe. He looked closer.  The violinist was tall, though not freakishly so, and long in the torso, though the jacket could influence that. His tux had a smooth collar, rather than the pointy kind. He couldn't think what could be deduced from that. The hair was too light, but he discounted that.  The face looked too short, too tanned. It was too far away to see those recognizable fingers, but there was something about the body position, something about the sureness of the bow arm...John clicked over to video, hoping for something, but there was none. Grasping at straws now, he scoured for more information on the concert. It was a minor appearance, not even conducted with the full symphony, but with a subset, a large chamber ensemble. However, and here his attention focused again, it appeared from a small human-interest item in the Norway Post, of all things, that the originally scheduled soloist had been the first chair, one Matthias Richter, apparently stricken ill, and that the second chair had been promoted to soloist for all but this one piece, which featured the newest member, third chair violinist John Sigerson, of Norwegian parentage but raised in France and England. 

Pathetic. He slammed the laptop shut. He was seeing evidence in the infections of obscure Norwegian violinists, instead of facing with a Holmesian calm the facts.  Fact:  Holmes had plunged off the damn building while he watched. Fact:  His brother, his just-a-minor-position-in-the-government know-it-all brother, had accepted his death.  

Of course, John’s mind reminded him, these facts begged questions:  would Sherlock have faked his death? What would be a compelling enough reason? Would Mycroft lie about it, to John, of all people?  Because John couldn't believe he didn't know, if Sherlock was truly gone. (dead. full stop.)  But he could believe Mycroft was lying. 

What made him think Sherlock was alive?  The line between wishful thinking and instinct seemed painfully thin, and he frankly suspected himself of the former. It was almost impossible to believe that someone so virulently alive could be dead. Sitting back in his chair, getting a better view of that place at the corner of the ceiling where the ugly green wallpaper had begun to peel, he admitted to himself that probably, it was more about his own life feeling purposeful. Sherlock had needed John, rather frequently, in his capacity as a doctor, or as a keeper.  Sometimes John was audience, mirror, substitute skull, and perhaps, friend. The almost instant change from two misfit people to Sherlock-Holmes-and-Doctor-Watson was one of the great moments of John’s life, though he wouldn’t admit it right out loud.  

For the second time in his life, he’d been cast back from a place of absolute belonging, from “I’d be lost without my blogger,” from “Captain Watson, 5th Northumberland,” to plain old John Watson, son of a drunk, brother of a drunk, an aging footballer, reasonably successful and well-liked but never remarkable.  Vital to no one, missed by no one. The only thing remarkable about him was absolutely invisible, the negative space Sherlock used to occupy.

The next day, after his shift, and a change of clothes, he rewarded himself with a trip to the pub. It wasn’t his local; he didn’t want to watch football or shoot the breeze, he wanted to drink a lovely, long, slow succession of scotches till the itch in his palms subsided and he could walk around without feeling like there are eyes on his back and an empty seat next to him in every cab.  Just for a little while. 

That evening, he phoned Sarah for a recommendation, and applied to the hospital at Bart’s. Two weeks later, he started his new job, which boasted delightfully long shifts, away from the ghosts of his previous life.  
 


	3. Dangerous Work

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> John starts his new job. It's...eventful.

On Monday, March 3 at 0842, John was at the hospital, wearing a white coat.  Just like a real doctor--or a crazy person, he thought with some bitterness as he tipped up his tea and studied the schedule board.  He tipped the mug at another doctor, who gave him an exasperated little smile as she barreled down the corridor with nurse in tow. “Already crazy and it’s not even 9 yet!” she said.

Clipboard in hand, he reviewed his schedule for the day and set out for Exam 3 to meet one Mr. James Riley, complaining of lung congestion.  

“So, Mr. Riley, you’ve not been feeling well then?” He shut the door gently behind him and turned to see a sandy blonde man of middle age, a bit thick in the middle but showing evidence of an active life, sitting on the exam table and watching him with bright blue eyes.  “Dr. Watson, pleased to meet you.” The smile was unexpected, and produced in John perhaps the opposite of its intended effect.  The militarily short hairs on the nape of his neck stood to attention and his focus sharpened, trying to read in the man’s appearance what Sherlock might read. Beyond a limited interest in fashion, he could not ascertain much of anything. He kept his distance and started, very slowly, on the routine questions, meanwhile considering whether there was any evidence to back up his instinct. 

“Any sneezing or  runny nose?” 

“Yeah, for a couple of weeks now.”  The man sounded clear as he probably ever did, with that horrible nasal accent John couldn’t place. 

“Drainage down the back of the throat?” 

“Yeah.” 

The man’s body was not tense. There were no suspicious bulges of weaponry. John decided he was being ridiculous and put down the clipboard to step into range, fishing the stethoscope out of his pocket, where he’d kept it since Sherlock had lectured him that it was a strangulation risk. John had felt it was a lecture risk. 

The man’s heart rate was fast, but normal, and his lungs sounded....fine.  John hung the stethoscope around his neck and pulled out the lighted magnifier and...damn it, he was right. One of the man’s hands clapped down over his mouth, the other around his throat, with the thumb placed just so, and pressing hard enough to make the edges of John’s vision go red.  

“Now,” He hissed, “You’re just going to stand very still.” 

John did, for a long moment, while his own voice replayed in his ears:  nothing ever happens to me. Then he heard the brisk, professional knock at the door that indicated a nurse on her way in.  Of course.  This exam room had a second door, but it was always locked.  There was an insider in cooperation with this grade-z villain.

Training kicked in; John stepped into his attacker, chinned down, and twisted out while pressing the elbow backwards, and he was out of the choke hold and into a crouch that brought his shoulder up into Mr.-Not-James-Riley’s gut.  The man lashed out with a meaty fist that caught John a little forward of his ear, cutting a long line of blood into the inside of his mouth, but luckily it was a bad angle for the hit. The other man was much taller, and when he came back across his body with his left, he was far enough off balance to allow John’s more compact frame to bend under him and heave him backward over the exam table with a satisfying crash. 

The nurse behind him--Jane, the bitch--was mostly looking confused with a syringe in her hand, still safely capped, and was quickly turned around and her hands tied with his stethoscope.  It wouldn’t have held a determined opponent, but she definitely looked like she was new to this game.  John grinned, for the first time in he didn’t know how long.

As Mr. Riley came up and around the table, John met him with a (very satisfying) kick to the groin followed by a clipboard to the temple.  He sank to the ground, not quite unconscious, but moving slowly enough that John rolled him to tape his hands behind his back and his feet together with some athletic tape from the first aid drawer.  Jane got the same treatment.  “Turn around.” He said to her, “Face the corner.” 

When he was satisfied she would stay that way, he examined the vial and syringe she’d been carrying and found midazolam, and drew it up and squirted a small dose into the mouth of the prone man, delightfully puncture-mark free. Within a minute, his struggling had ceased, his eyes had dilated and his mouth slackened. 

“Who hired you?”   
  
The man blinked twice. “Clinton.”   
  
“Clinton who?”   
  
“Clinton.  Ashby.  Just to deliver the package to the driver.”   
  
“Am I the package?”

“Yep.  Little doctor, quick in and out.”   
  
“Where’s the driver?”   
  
“Back door.”   
  
John rolled his eyes. Of course the driver would be at the back door, which he happened to know could be reached down the hallway beyond the locked second door in this room, which had originally been a lab sample room. 

He pulled out his phone and took a picture of the man’s face, then his whole body.  He drew up a bit more of the drug in the syringe, tossed the cap and bottle on the floor, and squirted some on the man’s shoulder and cheek. If it was detected that he’d received some of the drug, it would be easy to claim accident during the scuffle.

He arranged his face into worried, shocked lines as he yanked open the door and gave a shout.    
As was his great gift, he continued to look small, rumpled, and rather ordinary while the police arrived, a whole crew with no familiar faces, and he explained at least six times how the patient had grabbed him by the throat, and was examined by one of his coworkers (laceration inside cheek, bruising at cheek and throat, and not much else).  

He did catch the DI eyeing the bulk of his shoulders under the layers of lab coat and jumper, and responded by limping a bit more. John helpfully came down with the police to sign his official statement, and when he was finally released, it was nearly dinnertime, and he’d had his best day in ages.

After much consideration, though, he couldn’t imagine what motive the kidnappers might have, other than something Sherlock-related.  It was hard to envision any unrelated motive; John was a just washed-up blogger and part-time doctor, with a pension and a bum shoulder.

The next day, he was surprised to find a flood of comments on his blog; apparently someone had connected the item in the police blotters with him and posted an outpouring of support.  Bemused, he posted a quick, noncommittal update.

Whimsey got the better of him, and he titled it, “Something Happened.”


	4. Being Dead

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dying was hard; being dead was harder.

Dying was hard. 

Sherlock had known, intellectually, that it would be, but it hadn’t prepared him for standing on the ledge, desperately wanting to see the details of John’s upturned face, and desperately glad he couldn’t. Though it was more acute, that certainly wasn’t worse than what came after. 

He was alone with the work. The work was incredibly important—John’s life depended on it—and alone had never bothered him before, but now, it was not so much alone as the absence of John.

He knew if he could talk to John, the weight in his chest would grow smaller, so he did.  He narrated his discoveries and successes, just as he would at home:  Niall Rourke was the spy in the shipping company, all the Moriarty accounts are routed through him, which allows him to control their movements. Do keep up. And had a chase through an eel and oyster processing facility today. Bit slippery.  Still and all, it wasn’t very satisfying, because he’d gotten used to John actually saying things back.  He missed hearing You smell disgusting, what on earth have you been doing? And My god, Sherlock, aqua regia?  And Shit day at the surgery, I swear to God, sometimes I do miss the army. 

The adrenalin that had always kept Sherlock company on cases mysteriously diffused into nervousness that colored every minute. The high was never high, and the nerves never stopped.  He worked more regularly than he ever had, but much of the work was distressingly similar to corporate auditing. He slept regularly, but never deeply. In the long hours of the night, when he was too exhausted to reasonably conduct his business, but too wired to sleep, he liked to visit Baker Street in his mind, imagine soothing himself with his violin, and taking himself step by step through their daily routine. 

His life ground down to essentials. By November, an endless succession of hotel rooms and bedsits seemed to stretch out before and behind.  When he first realized, courtesy of a ginger-haired number fixer named Trencher, that Moriarty had himself been working for another man, he wanted nothing more than to sink into chemical bliss again.

The joy of the hunt, the satisfaction of puzzle pieces clicking together, the pride of winning…all were eclipsed by the horrid combination of necessity and repetition. 

It was disappointing, but not terribly surprising, therefore, when he slipped.

He had tracked the major player in the Cardiff drug distribution scene to a London nightclub where he would, with luck, be meeting the primary importer to the UK, a man named McNee who’d been a regular member of Moriarty’s consulting squad.  Sherlock hoped to observe the meet and use the information to plan his move on McNee’s organization, which would hopefully involve turning a road map over to the police; though he hadn’t any faith in their creativity, the police did have resources to wrap something up if pointed in the right direction. 

The club was packed with young professionals cutting loose. Sherlock eyed the flashing lights and throbbing crowd with distaste before pasting a hopeful smile on his face and retrieving a drink. His hair was molded into ridiculous spikes and his shirt open an extra button. It was childishly easy to convince a young woman (serious about ballet as a girl, from the Midlands, closet smoker, has a pair of pugs) to join him on the dance floor, and he was gratified that she was enough of a show-off that he was able to watch for McNee more or less undisturbed by interacting with her.    
When the music changed, he'd moved them to a large, square pillar that held up a mezzanine level.  It was conveniently placed just at the end of the large curved booth where four men sat, security detail (obvious), arranged on either side of a slender sandy-haired man. Sherlock was leaning on the pillar, and the blonde leaning on him, conveniently short enough that she was drunkenly nuzzling his neck instead of his face, when the Cardiff contingent joined them. Security was filing out of the booth when Sherlock noticed a man at the bar with eyes on him, alight with recognition.

The man at the bar was 6' even and running to fat, with great blue bags under his eyes, and Sherlock knew there would be a sizable stash in his pocket, and money and a knife at his ankles.  His name was James Pippin, and he’d been Sherlock's dealer, six years before. He had also, humiliatingly, been arrested with him. They’d spent approximately two years in the back of a police car together, both handcuffed, while Sherlock puked on his own lap, before Mycroft had come to get him. 

Pippin not only knew him, he knew who Sherlock was.

Sherlock had nearly determined to brazen it out, when Pippin's gaze cut to McNee. He knows him. They'll put it together.  Pippin was heading his way, and Sherlock melted back into the dance floor, the blonde forgotten, cursing his height (not for the first time) and bending his knees a little. Glance back, yes, security detail on their feet. 

He bailed successfully, but the damage was done.  Now he had to assume Banker’s organization knew exactly who he was, and what he was doing. 

He gave them credit; they moved fast. It was only two days later that what he thought of as his Watson-feeds notified him of a post on John's blog, and an article in the Times. 

Blog first:  "Thank you for your concern.  There was, indeed, a small incident yesterday at the surgery where I work.  You can read about it in the Times here, if you like, but it's a short story, and no one was seriously injured."

He read the link in the Times, then the police blotter.  Considered, not for the first time, hacking into the Met, but determined that it was not a favorable risk-reward profile. The name and age of the arrested patient told him nothing; there were no details to deduce from, not even a picture, just a few lines of text.  

Just another of the inexplicable things that happen every day in London.  Inexplicable used to be his country, but now he can’t explain, because he’s dead. 

There’s only one thing for it; he needs to go back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fixed the double-posted chapter, sorry for the confusion.


	5. Entanglements

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> John has a date, and a very belated realization.

Entanglements were a fact of life at the hospital, and truth be told, John was not averse to getting a leg over once in a while. It was something to do anyway.

So he texted Lily, the honey blonde, and asked if she'd like to get another plate of curry.

He wore his new jeans, and for a change, shoes that weren’t trainers.  He’d just come off shift and went straight to the restaurant, making it a solid half-hour before their date, to get a seat and a pint under his belt before he had to be what he hoped was charming.  She rushed in, ten minutes late as usual, swinging a purse he could have moved to the country in and with another pair of earrings (gold this time, three tiers of round beads) swinging along her neck.  She leaned down to buss his cheek, which was gold with stubble.  Breathlessly depositing herself in the seat across the way, and--

“Evening, then.  And how was your day? What are you drinking?”

“Lager.”

“Sounds fantastic.  You wouldn’t believe the situation in Endocrinology.”

She embarked on a stream of chatter while he signaled the waiter for a second beer and studied her nails on the glass when it came, as if they should tell him a tale of where she’s been and what she’s done in the past eight hours.  All they told him is that she cares about her appearance, but wasn’t too high maintenance (nails short but smoothly rounded, manicured but with clear polish and natural finish, not chipped but not flashy).  All to the good, but not exactly what Sherlock would know. His ghostly silvery eyes would flash sideways to John, just to make sure he was listening, before serving up her life story until the inconvenient facts made her small hands clench on her beer and perhaps give in to the (so common) longing to toss it right in his face.  

John’s mouth quirked up around an olive as he sampled the hors d’oeuvres plate.  He pictured Sherlock’s hands on a pint, though he’d never known him to drink much, long fingers, catching beads of moisture, drawing patterns, their constant, restless motion alternated with absolute stillness.

She took his amusement as interest in her story of Dr. Patel and the two nurses he was juggling, and forged on.  He made appreciative noises from time to time and ordered some of the very good vindaloo and another pint.

Soon enough, she was blotting her mouth with her napkin (don’t smear the lipstick) and asking from under her eyelashes, “Like to come back to mine?”

He smiled.

They stood outside her door, in a tiny garden made cheerful with pots of bright geraniums.  She had her keys out, heading for the lock, when she looked over--they’re nearly the same height--with a mischievous smile and planted a kiss on his wide mouth.  It was firm but undemanding. Her smile was still there when she pulls back, but his had gone. His chest was hollow, and her mouth was too full, and her nose too blunt, and her hair too long and too golden, and she was much, much too short.   
Talk about facing facts, he thought, as he stared into her warm brown eyes. For the first time since his first case with Sherlock, he admitted to himself that maybe he spent a little too much time contemplating the long lines of Sherlock’s legs and the dark foam of his curls, and the way his face spoke a secret language only to John. A little too much time, too much attention, for a mate, or a flatmate. He'd just—never thought about it, after Sherlock had informed him he was uninterested (married to my work) but clearly, it hadn't gone away, just lain in wait. And now it was ambush time.   
John threaded his hand deliberately through the soft, thick hair at Lily’s nape and returned his mouth to hers, controlling the kiss carefully. When he felt her free hand go limp in his, and the one on his waist lighten into butterfly-gentle contact as she whimpered a little, he pulled back, something dark moving under the surface of his mind as he took in her relaxed face and posture.  He plucked the keys from her hand and let them in.

(Time. Jump.)  
 


	6. Mycroft at Work

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which John has an adventure, and a discussion.

  
It was after 1 AM when the lock snicked behind him as he left. Lily was sleeping, but John was wide awake. He could have taken a cab; it’d take an hour to walk home, and it was slightly risky, and his leg ached a bit, but he leaned into the pain and set out, the unique smell of damp London in his nose comforting him as he considered the evening.

He wouldn’t call her again. She would think he’s one of those blokes who’s only out for a one-night stand. He pinched the bridge of his nose as he walked. Everyone else apparently had thought he and Sherlock were—was it because his attraction to his insane flatmate _showed_? He felt like he’d been walking around with his zipper down.  

Had Sherlock suspected? Objected?  Considered it irrelevant?  Sentiment? _What a wanker_.

John tried to file these with the rest of the unanswerable questions of Sherlock’s disappearance. They were irrelevant, because there was no Sherlock anymore.  But thinking about Sherlock this way, it made John feel....different. 

It reminded him of Kitty, Christopher Robin Turnbull, a flyboy who started out as Kit, but soon became Pretty Kitty to his comrades.  Kitty had a quarter-inch of solid-gold buzz cut, wicked blue eyes, and a megawatt grin, all of which he deployed at will against many an otherwise straight bloke.  John had been old enough to know better, and lonely enough not to care, and somehow, it had worked.  It was only two months before Kitty was shipped out…but he was burned into John’s memory, a bit like Sherlock. Sometimes, out of the blue, he’d remember the curve of Kit's spine or the sly twinkle of his eyes as they slitted closed in pleasure, or the lovely springiness of his quads under John’s head, or his big hands gentle on John’s back.

But it was only the one man.

Except it wasn’t. John had just spent an evening with a lovely woman, thinking about the way Sherlock’s forearm muscles would shift below rolled up sleeves when he lifted a test tube or a violin bow, or a riding crop, and the way a laugh could come and go from his face like a popup storm.

Maybe he’d been a little smitten with Kitty, everyone had been, for being the life of the party, a generous, easy-going bloke.  But Sherlock...the details were too raw for smitten.  He remembered the way Sherlock beamed his relentless focus at musicians from the street corner to the Albert Hall, and it looked like mistrust or anger, but it was actually rapt attention, the highest compliment he could pay.  John remembered watching long strides break the line of his coat and billow up the rear skirts like a tall-ship setting sail. He remembered the little crinkle at the corner of his eyes when he acknowledged John in a group, an almost-smile that was part of their secret language.  He remembered that voice, with an undue clarity, the voice that could say things like, “Hand me that second liver sample,” and make John’s guts warm.

Fact: John was mooning over his dead flatmate like a fourth-former with a crush on a spiky-haired musician.

Except he wasn’t, because he had already known Sherlock, and already loved him.  It’s just, now, he’s thinking of seeing Sherlock soak up his praise in entirely a different context.

He was preoccupied with all the things he hasn’t let himself think about, but still paying enough attention, he thought, to the London around him.  But when he was less than a block from home, coming up on the Speedy Deli, he had a moment of spidey-sense, just a little too late.  He was yanked into the alley there, the bulk of one man behind him, and another beside him.  His head was slammed into the brick unceremoniously, and even as he tried to become all knees and elbows, the much larger and rather professional men secured him, with some sort of cap pulled down over his face and both wrists and ankles bound before he can really react.  He heard a car pull up as he was lifted by ankles and armpits and carried out of the alley.  His hyper-aware senses registered three sharp pops, then he was unceremoniously dumped on the ground as a scuffle began. He rolled away until he hit something, then squirmed against it like a worm on a hook, trying to remove the cap covering his eyes.

More shuffling, another car pulled up, and the cap came off, leaving his hair standing out all over in wild spikes.  The dark figure cut the zip ties at his wrists and ankles, and was joined by a second man, who helped him to his feet.  A black Rolls was at the curb and they silently guide him that way.  “Thanks for the help and all, but I don’t really fancy a car ride with you either.” 

His phone buzzed at his hip. They exchanged a look and silently stood back enough for him to check it, though not so far he could realistically make a break for it.

_Just go with them, John.  We need to talk._

_MH_

“Oh, for heaven’s sake. Couldn’t he just use the phone like a normal person?”

The rear door on the second car opened and he could just see Anthea’s long, pale foot come out to the curb, as the two men quickly bundle the slumped forms on the sidewalk into the first car, pushed the limp driver over, and pull out. John hoped idly that they were tranqed, rather than dead.

“Get in the car, John.”  Anthea seemed to have dredged up a tiny bit of warmth from somewhere--perhaps drinking the blood of her victims? John got in the car.

Sliding through London in the miracle of German engineering, Anthea’s dark head bent over her BlackBerry next to him, John smiled over the fact that this whole incident actually seemed more normal to him than the previous 8 months. 

The car deposited them at an anonymous government office building, in a district full of such buildings.  He and Anthea were met by two additional gorilla-sized security staff, who made him feel well below average height.

They took an elevator and a series of anonymous hallways to a small conference room where Mycroft waited, at the head of the table, naturally, reviewing something on a tablet computer while texting on his phone.

“Ah, John, thank you for accepting my invitation.”

“How could I refuse?” John said sarcastically. The giants had closed the door, and he had no doubt they were standing on the outside, flanking it like there’s a national security risk. Anthea discreetly disappeared with her eternal phone.

“Tea? Coffee?”

“No, thanks, I think I’ll have plenty of trouble sleeping without it.”

“Well.”  Mycroft laced his fingers across his waist and tilted his head to what he no doubt believes is an avuncular angle.

“I assume you’ve been...” John ran a hand up the back of his head, laughing at himself a little, without humor, “Why have you been watching me? And for how long?  And while we’re at it, when were you going to tell me?” His eyes were hard, distrustful.

“I wasn’t.” Mycroft smiled tightly, “Unless it became...necessary.  Which it did, tonight.  I trust you’re unharmed.” 

“Oh, yes, fine. Just peachy, Mycroft.”  John didn’t want to be so difficult that he learned nothing, but Mycroft, the conceited arsehole, needed to know that it was not okay with him, the spying. “You do realize it’s dubiously legal to spy on a British citizen for absolutely no goddamn reason, right?”  It ended up as almost a growl.

“I have a reason.” Mycroft moved his hands on the table in front of him, the gesture curiously unfinished, as if he missed having papers to straighten.  The pause stretched out. “He asked me to. That day. He called me--voluntarily--and said that you were in danger, and asked me to look out for you...he wanted eyes on you.” Mycroft’s eyes, darker than his brother’s but no less piercing, were on John’s face.  “I’ve been surveilling you intermittently since his death, and constantly since the incident at the clinic. It seems he was right; you’ve gained the interest of some rather unsavory individuals, and I’m rather interested in why.  And how.”  Mycroft made a few taps on his tablet and pushed it across to John.  It showed a relatively good quality, but obviously long-distance, shot of a white man in his early thirties, with hard, mottled grey-green eyes shadowed by heavy purple under-eye bags, and sandy hair, wearing a conservatively cut white shirt, no tie.  “Do you recognize this man?”

“No.” John didn't take much note of his surroundings anymore, he realized with some regret. 

“His name is Sebastian Moran.  British citizen, ex-military, 38 years of age.  Moriarty’s heir-apparent as, shall we say, a PR representative. We found him through someone your recalcitrant patient led us to.” John’s brow furrowed.

“Through Clinton Ashby?”  Mycroft’s eyes tightened, and John had the distinct pleasure of feeling he’s surprised him.  “He told me.”

“I know what I did to him,” Mycroft leaned forward, “So what did you do to him?”

“Nothing I’m discussing with a man who surveills people without their consent.”

Compact and a little rumpled, hair still standing on end, John gave no ground to the elegant Holmes; then again, he’s had practice with ignoring the Holmeses’ high-handed approach.

“Mmm,” Mycroft made a noncommittal noise, but John thought he was pleased, perversely. “You are obviously in their sights, and this man Moran is involved. They are clearly trying to take you alive; there must be a reason. And I can conceive of only one reason.”  Mycroft paused, and a slow roll of near-panic moved through John’s gut, even before Mycroft said it.  “Sherlock.”

John was on his feet and standing at the window almost before the word was out. His body retreated, as a soldier’s will, to parade rest, mind flashing back to the missing violin, the bequest, the questions he’d had.  If anything, a year with his mercurial flatmate had taught him that subtleties were important, but the missing violin, that was...not subtle.  It was all but a flashing neon sign, and he was suddenly, sickeningly sure that his instincts were right, that Sherlock wasn’t sleeping the big sleep, that he’d spent 8 months mourning a man who purposefully deceived him... and then tried to tell him so.

Mycroft folded his hands neatly.  “Has he contacted you?”

John didn't trust his voice, so he shook his head, still looking out the window. Nausea gathered in his midsection like a storm.

“I don’t know he’s alive, John. But I suspect.” _Which from a Holmes is just this side of knowing._ “I believe that Moran is using you to get to him, and I further believe that he will grow more violent.  He doesn’t seem to have Moriarty’s flair for the dramatic, which is somewhat fortunate, but the undramatic approach is actually more likely to be successful." 

Mycroft was gleaming at John again, and John kept his gaze on the windows, seeing nothing but meaningless clusters of lights as he tries to keep breathing ( _boring_ , Sherlock’s voice rumbles in his head).

“I hope fervently that Sherlock does contact us soon, and I ask that should you hear from him before I do, you notify me.  I can provide...” A delicate pause. “...resources, should they be needed.” He shifted in his chair.  “In the meantime, may I suggest that you exercise more than your usual caution? Including with your choice of bedmates; Lily isn’t exactly worthy of you, don’t you think?”

John’s jaw was so tight it felt like his teeth might crack. “So, to summarize, you want me to rat Sherlock out to you, should it become possible, but you’re not providing protection, just in case one of us might do something interesting, which would allow you to pursue, oh, whatever your agenda might be, because it’s sure as hell not your _brother’s_ welfare.  Oh, and you’d like to stick your long nose into my personal life as well. And here was I, starting to think you were human.”

He had leaned on his fists on the conference table, practically growling at Mycroft.  Remembering himself, he straightened, and they stare at each other for a long moment.  “We’re done here.”

As John’s hand hit the door handle, there was a soft, “Captain Watson.”

He paused.

“Thank you for your loyalty to Sherlock.  I hope it doesn’t get you killed.”

 


	7. Contact

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> John's suspicions about Sherlock are confirmed.

 John is steadily, mindlessly chopping vegetables for a fry-up when his phone buzzes.

Meet me where we caught the red-handed embezzler, 13:00?  
SH

It’s like stepping under a waterfall; his skin goes blazing hot, then cold, then hot again and his head snaps up, a little too fast, making him a bit dizzy. Suspecting it didn’t prepare him for this. That utter bastard.  John wipes a hand across his mouth, which seems to be stuck in a grimace of pain. The thought is followed by: Is it really him?

He could call Mycroft, get CCTV confirmation, but as soon as the thought surfaces, he’s dismissed it. He wouldn’t give him the satisfaction, and anyway, Sherlock’s likely thought of that.

Besides, the red-handed embezzler...well, that was an adventure, and one he hadn’t written up yet. They had caught up with her--barely, she was very fit, not to mention rather a handful, due to her hobby of boxing—pelting through a series of back alleys about four blocks from Angelo’s, which had made for a pleasant and convenient post-case late-night meal. The alleys were interconnected, a horrid place to try to contain anyone, and probably if the embezzler had been less indecisive, or if Sherlock had waited for police backup, for one time in his life, John wouldn’t have wound up plowing into the corner of a garbage skip as they both tried to tackle her, and he could have had wine with his late-night meal instead of a tetanus shot. 

Upon review, he wondered if he really did want Sherlock back.

Then again…he grins, the revolver at his back, where it had been ever since his last little fireside chat with Mycroft. He said dangerous.

John leaves the vegetables on the cutting board and grabs his jacket.  
   
***

 

The best ingress seems to be a long Victorian-era alley topped fancifully at the entrance with a stone arch.  The arch seems a bit ambitious for the long corridor of grime it encloses; there’s a small, dingy court visible at the end of the alley, and at least three other alleys enter between John and the court.  He takes the second one, left, back toward Angelo’s, a more modern version made of cracked concrete.  John steps quietly and slowly, hand under the back of his jacket.  It’s fully possible, of course, that this is a trap of the dime-novel variety, and he’s thought through his approach, and chosen the angle admitting the most daylight.  At the corner, he puts his back to the wall and listens, listens.  There’s waiting silence, then, the phone buzzes.

John?

He huffs out a little breath, he can’t help it.  “Sherlock?” he says it aloud, in a normal voice.  His thighs feel hot again; he’s now more propping his back against the wall than standing.   
“John?”   
Waiting stillness.  That voice, God, that voice. His eyes squeeze shut.

Don’t listen to the voice, listen to the tone. Unreadable, neutral.  Is he in trouble?  Or is he just….Sherlock?  John waits, trusting Sherlock will know what he’s waiting for.  Confirmation.  That he’s OK, that he doesn’t need rescuing, that it isn’t a trap, that he, Sherlock, is really here. And Sherlock does know.     
“John. Hamish. Watson.” He’s speaking slowly, like he’s unused to it. “Medical Doctor.  Captain, British Army, honourable discharge, medical. Five foot eight, 11 stone, brown and blue. 40 short jacket, 34-31 pants, 42 shoe. Blood type A positive.  Left shoulder wounded, resulting in slight loss of mobility and overhead strength on dominant side. Sugar and milk in tea but not coffee, eats a full English breakfast no less than once per week.  Owns eight nearly indistinguishable jumpers. Doesn’t believe in God unless it’s to pray for other people’s safety, knows how to get tomato stains out, but hides it, because it’s a bit too domestic. Never takes a seat with his back to a door or window, but always takes the window in a bus or plane. Prefers marmalade, but keeps plum jam because he knows I like it. Claims he wants to live a quiet life, but chose to live it with me. Which really does throw either his intentions or his sanity into doubt.”

Sherlock is really here, jesus, and John feels like it’s the bravest thing he’s ever done to turn his shoulders and step out of the alley. He has stepped into firefights with less adrenalin. His gun is still in hand, and it’s suddenly clear why training dictates that you never leave a finger on the trigger, as his hand tightens in a convulsive grip.  Check safety, stow weapon. 

There’s a man at the corner of the garbage skip, one hand white-knuckled around the handle of a violin case, a rolling suitcase at his feet. He’s wearing chunky glasses and his hair is cut severely short and dyed to a dishwater blonde not unlike John’s.  He’s wearing an improbable Man United sweatshirt with a hood and slender jeans just a titch too tight across the thighs, and overall, he looks almost nothing like Sherlock, but he is.

He’s pale and his cheeks are hollow, and under his eyes are dark smudges which look even darker because he’s wearing contacts or something to change the color of his eyes, which John finds unbelievably disorienting, like he’s remembered his mate’s face all wrong, all these months. 

And even with all this time to prepare, John can’t think of a thing to say.  His mind’s blank as a beach at low tide, just a smattering of detritus on smooth, wide expanses of sand.

“John Hamish Watson.” Sherlock says it again, quieter this time, just a rumble in his chest, his eyes shining with things he’s not saying.  John can’t feel his face, can’t feel his hands.  
   
They stand for another stretch of time which is both long and short, and John’s not entirely sure either of them are breathing.  He sees Sherlock actually waver on his feet and takes a long stride forward, still tongue-tied.  

“I’d like to come home. May I?” All Sherlock’s attention is on John’s face and it feels like being under a laser beam. Sherlock will know the answer to his question before John does. He wants to say, no, you have no right, after what you did to me, no, you have to tell me first, no, I barely survived, but what comes choking out is, “Yes.”  At least Sherlock thought to ask.

And Sherlock swallows.  "It will be....dangerous.  It is dangerous." 

“You said that before. Didn’t really put me off.” Sherlock’s visibly swaying now.  “Jesus Christ, when was the last time you ate?” 

Then John’s got him by the upper arms, sort of propping him back on his feet, and then there’s a quirk at the corner of that wide, bowed mouth, and then John’s eyes are crinkling at the side, and he can feel that, and they’re both laughing like loons again, in another alley, one holding the other up, barely staying on their feet.  

And that, and the solid, springy muscle under John’s hands is enough, for now.  
 


	8. Home

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> John and Sherlock try to deal with the shock of being together, without talking about their feelings.

As they step out of the alley, Sherlock’s body language changes.  He looks shorter, suddenly, and younger, a little gawky.  His feet turn out just slightly, his case bangs against his legs, his shoulders round and his head sits forward as if he’s spent his life in front of a computer. John’s seen him do this kind of thing before, but it’s straight on disturbing when he’s not sure yet if Sherlock is real.  Did he imagine the man he saw in the alley? It’s amazing, really, and now he knows:  he can spend just about two whole minutes in Sherlock’s presence without being blown away by his talents.

They’re nearly silent on the way home.  There’s a waiting feeling; they’re carrying a fragile bubble of things unsaid between them, as Sherlock shifts his violin so it isn’t between them, as John goes in to Angelo’s for takeout, as they fold into a cab, as John slides first into the front door at Baker Street, to see if the coast is clear, temporarily, avoiding Mrs. Hudson by silent agreement.  All the while Sherlock’s eyes dart from place to place under thick-rimmed glasses, mostly resting on John, taking in the changes, in what minute detail John can only guess.  He doesn’t know what has changed, himself, other than the size of his arse and the constant pain under his sternum, which he thought would disappear in Sherlock’s presence, but which seems instead to have grown, until it feels like a tennis ball-sized foreign object is lodged there. 

Up seventeen stairs, they come into Baker Street.  It’s changed too; Sherlock flicks his gaze all over it, pausing to puzzle over the packing crate where his chair used to be.  John feels like he’s got the dormitory mother in for an inspection. He doesn’t mean to speak, but the most important thing bubbles out of his mouth, sounding rather more like an order than he’d intended.

“Take off the disguise.”

Sherlock’s gaze lands on him again; John had forgotten what it was like, being in the searchlight of that intellect. Sherlock’s face is absolutely neutral; John used to read the minute shifts in his face like an open book, like no one else, but this new Sherlock is even better at keeping his thoughts to himself. He pulls a small kit from the suitcase and walks to the bathroom, his posture his own again.  When he reappears five minutes later, wet around the hairline, his eyes their native unearthly silver, the sweatshirt over his shoulder, John’s still standing in exactly the same spot, hollow and raw and stuck.

Sherlock hangs the sweatshirt on a hook and bends to pull off his trainers, then stands in front of John like a soldier for inspection, barefoot and damp, in a white undershirt and the dark stylish jeans.  There’s a new scar, still pink and shiny, from the ridge of his brow into his hairline.  “Better?” he rumbles.

“Better.”  John’s eyes are considering. 

“John, I…”

John holds up a hand.

“Stop.  Food first.  Whatever we…..” He stops for a moment, gathering his breath. “Just, food first. You’re….you look like you haven’t eaten in a month.” This is less about Sherlock and more about John needing time to adjust, and they both know it. But Sherlock just nods and follows him into the kitchen. He suspects the routine will be good for them both. 

John gathers up the vegetables he meant to make for lunch and puts them away. The kitchen is otherwise very nearly clean, entirely without experiments, piles of papers and books, or dirty dishes, with the exception of a single bowl from John’s long-ago breakfast in another world. John sets out the food, gets silverware and napkins, and pours them each a glass of water, all without either looking at Sherlock or looking away from him. Sherlock looks like he’s about to bolt the entire time, perched on the edge of his chair with none of his hallmark indolence. 

Sherlock picks up his fork and sets it down.  “John.”

John holds up a hand.  “No talking.  You need to eat.  Obviously.  Not another word till half that is gone.” Sherlock’s mouth is open to argue, but he closes it. The fork trembles visibly on its way to his mouth. John starts eating, methodically, just like the Army taught him.  No matter what, keep the body functioning.

Sherlock uses the time to study his flatmate; John’s hair is grey-er, his skin sallow, the bags under his eyes making his face look haggard, tense lines on each side of his mouth. His shoulders are wider. Or has Sherlock exaggerated John’s compactness in memory? Bearing rigid, shoes old but polished.  He remembers them,  remembers the weekly ritual with the oil, the smell in their flat on Sunday mornings, regular as church. Jumper new, a rather shocking blue, must stand out like a sore thumb amongst the oatmeal collection.  A gift?  No, a new jumper for a new man.  Hand: a fine tremor.  Limp: noticeable but not cane-worthy.

So ordinary.  So little to tell.  Of course, that is John’s genius.  He hides in a crowd, so easily, people don’t understand that he’s galvanic,  a lightning rod, and a fascinating puzzle of his own. Sherlock himself had taken John's unexpectedness for granted, and never asked: what sent him to Afghanistan?  What  brought him home?  Why does he talk with Harry dutifully once a month and never more? Why doesn’t Sherlock know these things? They can’t be found in his turn-ups or his inkstains, or the calluses on his hands or the scratches on his phone. 

Sherlock wants to know everything, wants to watch the movie of the life of one John Watson, to know it all, even the outcome of this meeting, so that instead of this gnawing fear, he would have certainty, with the pleasant anxiety one can have, knowing the outcome is good  (here be dragons, but dragons will be slain).

When Sherlock thinks he can reasonably call his meal half-done, he puts the fork down and laces his fingers together on the table. John’s gaze on him is like a blanket, a little too close to his nose, warm and suffocating. John gives up one bite after Sherlock. 

“Now let’s take care of this.”  He touches his own forearm, at the place where, on Sherlock’s right arm, there are two long gashes, roughly parallel, haphazardly stitched together and partially healed. “Get that done in a jungle clinic, did you?” Sherlock grimaces, with his eyes on his arm. 

“I’m afraid the ones on the right are harder.”   
John’s eyes don't waver, but the tennis ball in his chest seems to have grown spikes.  He breathes, and gets his medical case, and does not visualize Sherlock alone, sewing up his own arm.  He unlaces the shoddy stitching, cleans the wounds, and uses surgical glue from his rather extensive kit.  Sherlock grimaces, but he’s silent while he watches his blood run out onto paper towels on the kitchen table he can no longer quite consider his own. 

“Do you need a tetanus shot for this?”

“I’ve already had…shots.  I’ve. travelled.” Words used to stop and go, sometimes rushing out like a cataract, sometimes deserting him altogether; now they seem to have slowed to a trickle.

“Are you…Is there anything else?” John almost knows there is, though he can’t say exactly how.  Sherlock’s mouth tightens and he half-turns away from John, pulling up his tee shirt on the right, in the back, and turning his head so he can watch John in his peripheral vision. Not that there’s anything to see.  

He’s seen John be a doctor, more times than he can count, but he thinks this might be his first time seeing John as a medic, absolutely detached, hands rock-steady, breathing slow and calm. John peels the dressing off a small slash just at the base of the ribs. It’s deep and swollen and very recent.  Sherlock flinches as John palpates the wound. Leaving the dressing attached below, he methodically cleans and inspects it, then applies a fresh dressing. Sherlock keeps his breathing deep and steady and the pain under the surface of his mind. 

“You’re going to a clinic for antibiotics in the morning.  In the meantime take these.” He fishes some leftover antibiotics out of the fridge and shakes two out for Sherlock. Sherlock swallows the pills, and John’s gone, sitting in the living room, sitting in his chair, elbows on his knees (pain, exhaustion), head in hands (exhaustion, embarrassment).

John’s felt like this before, no feelings and every feeling, blank and hideously angry and happy and relieved.  He can’t steal a look at the scotch, Sherlock will know it’s his new best friend, so he does the next best thing and pictures it in absolute splendor, every detail he can manage, as he’s done so many times with Sherlock’s face, his expressions, his hand gestures, though all those things seem to have changed. Even through deployment and what came after, his sister’s cautionary example was enough to keep him from getting emotionally involved with the scotch, but wanting it now, with Sherlock here in the room, he suspects that this time he’s gone and done it without even realizing, he’s fallen in love with scotch. He thought they were just friends.

He hears the bottle slide, maddeningly, away from him, can almost feel Sherlock’s glance at the reverent line of empties—dead soldiers—on the mantelpiece, flanking the skull which was part of his curious bequest.  Fabric rustles.  Sherlock is sitting on the coffee table in front of him.

“I had to choose. There were no good choices. I'm...sorry.” Sherlock sounds anxious, afraid even.

John takes the phone out of his pocket and calls the hospital, his eyes on Sherlock, to request the next day off.  “Family emergency,” he says flatly and cuts the call.

John presses the heels of his hands hard into his eye sockets, feels grit and sand, smells hot engines and unwashed gear and gunpowder. He somehow manages to look at the grey eyes and the old crease just south of the nose and the new scar and all of it doesn’t compute, doesn’t work together. He folds his hands in front of his tense line of mouth.

He wants to say, _you didn’t think we could work something out?  You didn’t think the two of us could beat him? You didn’t think I trusted you?_ But he doesn’t. He’s seen men come in off patrol, looking like they’ve brought the ghost of something with them. He isn’t sure what ghosts Sherlock’s carrying, but John’s a healer, first, and before he can think about the mind, he has to know about the head.  The blood, that gray day with dark blood on the pavement.  “I know you’re not....I mean, obviously, you’re...but, can I?” He makes a little unfinished gesture, and Sherlock, thank god, knows exactly what he needs, and lowers his head. John reaches forward and puts his fingers into the weird-blonde hair that is much too short and checks methodically for breaks, cracks, scars, knowing he won’t find them. His breathing has gone funny, and the room has gone blurry, and Sherlock is absolutely still under his hands, torso folded, resting mostly on his good forearm, propped on his own knee. John pulls his hands back, with difficulty, and Sherlock makes a small noise in the half-dark, hardly more than an emphatic breath, and slides off the coffee table onto his knees between John’s feet, head down, not moving, just...sitting on his heels and breathing, every breath a pull of pain his back, a pull of pain in his chest, under his heart, where John and Baker Street belong, where nothing has been for what feels like a very, very long time.

John scoots a little, still leaning on his elbows, and gently puts his hand back on his friend’s head, and very slowly, hyper-aware for any reticence, guides it down onto his shoulder. The strange, deep, raspy breathing keeps on, and they sit for long minutes, forehead to shoulder, saying nothing. Tears run into Sherlock's hair.

John looks at the scotch behind Sherlock’s back and can’t remember why it was important. 

***

After what feels like an evolutionary time, Sherlock can bear to lift his head, and he’s looking at John again, absolutely blank, but unable to look away. 

“We should sleep.” John says, and tries for a smile and makes it as far as a twitch in his cheeks. “Help me carry the couch?” 

Sherlock trails John to his bedroom, where he looks quizzically at the accumulation; chair, couch, piles of folded clothing (John’s), bags of clothing from the cleaner’s (his), boxes of detritus from research and experiments (potentially dangerous, at this point).  They carry the couch and chair to the living room and behind them find Sherlock’s very dusty bed, which John insists on stripping and remaking with fresh sheets. He leaves Sherlock like a guest, with his suitcase and the bedside lamp turned on.  Sherlock pulls on musty-smelling pajamas and climbs under the duvet, but doesn’t turn the light off.

He thinks.  

Mostly about John.

 Moriarty has perhaps won after all. He’d said he’d burn the heart out of him, and Sherlock assumed he meant it as a threat against the people he cared for, steady, exasperated, loyal Lestrade, and the bulwark of home, Mrs. Hudson, and John, the solid earth under his feet. But now, feeling the cavernous, cold space in his chest, even as he lays in his own bed, he can’t believe it will ever be full again, happy and spent and replete with mornings with the violin under his chin as John putters in the kitchen and long lazy days on the couch and heart-pounding foot chases followed by good Chinese, the best Chinese to be had in London. These are the actions that formed the architecture of the happiest time in his life, after Baskerville, but before Moriarty, when he finally told himself, told John that John was his friend, even if John didn’t entirely understand what he meant. Before he was ensnared by his own ugly fascination with shiny puzzles, before Moriarty proceeded to strip him, skin, muscle, sinew, bone, using his own ego as the tool.  
   
****

 

John climbs to his room and gets ready for bed, though it’s only eight o’clock. His limbs are heavy and it feels like the entire universe has rearranged itself around him. He addresses his laptop and begins methodically answering comments on his blog.  Just another day at the office.  He does it till they’re all done, then pays the gas bill, balances his checkbook, and finally admits defeat and watches the dumbest sci-fi movie he can find on NetFlix.  It’s not even eleven o’clock when he turns out the light and starts staring at the ceiling. There is absolutely no reason he should believe Sherlock will disappear.  _No reason, except that last time, when he actually disappeared_.  Six minutes later he’s toting his duvet down to flop on the couch.  _At least if the git tries to leave, I’ll hear him_. 

Besides, he can look at his last bottle of scotch this way.  
 


	9. The Case

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> John and Sherlock manage to have a talk.

When Sherlock’s phone buzzes at half seven, and he’s startled to find he’s actually slept. He appears in the living room one minute later, swaddled in his blue dressing gown, which has been hanging on its hook, waiting for him. John is not even pretending to read the paper, a hot cup at his knee. His eyes look exhausted. 

Sherlock's never paid much attention to John’s physical presence before, but it seems now as if every part of John was specifically designed to speak to him: his hair, sticking to his forehead in damp-dark spikes, the shuffle of stocking feet as he heads to the kitchen, the long diagonal drape of his sweater from the slightly higher left shoulder to the right hip.

“I had a meeting with your brother this week,” John says quietly from the kitchen. He’s digging a pan out and putting the kettle back on. Sherlock joins him, folding himself into a kitchen chair. ”I know we have. Some business to attend to. Um, the work.” He turns and crosses his arms over his chest.  Sherlock watches the new muscle shift. No, he doesn’t remember this at all. “But I have to ask: was the violin a message?”

Sherlock nods.

“Did you play while you were gone?”

Sherlock nods again.  “Yes. Not my own.”

“In Oslo?”

Nod. No more speaking, because Sherlock’s throat has closed up, thinking about John, alone, listening to him on the other side of the sea.

“OK, um, okay.  I heard you, I think. On the radio. Was it you?”

Sherlock nods, gaze focused in the distance and his eyes a little too wide so they don’t spill over. He has no idea what is wrong with him.

John busies himself with eggs. Tea. Toast.  Oh, god, toast.  He hesitates, decides today isn’t the day.  Turns the burner on under his toast skillet. 

“Where was the violin?”

“In a storage facility, in London.”

“In case Mycroft made off with it?”   
“In case he sold it, and to send you a message. I could have given it up, but I didn’t want to.” John’s back stiffens. Sherlock had put him in cold storage too, but it had been much more painful for him.   
“You see why that’s hurtful, right?”

“I--yes.”  Sherlock pulls his knees up, wraps his arms around them.

“You knew I trusted you. You knew I was going to keep trusting you, which meant I was going to not understand what you did, which meant that in addition to losing my flatmate and my colleague and the best...” Breathe. “the best friend I’d ever had, I was going to think it was on some level my fucking fault for not giving you the support you needed to goddamn live through it. There better be,” Breathe. “There better be a good fucking reason."

He looks over his shoulder, spatula in a white-knuckled hand, and watches Sherlock give him the tiniest nod. John breathes again, slow and careful.

“Okay then.  Now that we’ve established that you don’t trust me and I shouldn’t trust you, how about some practical matters?  Things I know or guess.”

He plunks the plate in front of Sherlock, two eggs, over easy, two rashers of bacon, with toast, and turns to the cabinet.  John deposits a fresh jar of plum jam and a knife with more force than is strictly necessary.  Sherlock stares at them.  Stares at John. 

“Eat. I mean it.”  John crosses his arms again, managing to look fairly menacing while his eggs cook.  “I know Moriarty was manipulating the shit out of you, and that he was good at it. I know he died on the roof, because I saw the body.  Mycroft has told me he shot himself, but I don’t trust him either, so I’m leaving that blank for now.

“I can guess that whatever you’ve been doing was risky as hell, and successful enough to attract attention from, really, really the wrong kind of people. I know that Mycroft believes that Moriarty’s network has survived him, so I assume those are the wrong kind of people we’re talking about. Mycroft further believes that Moriarty’s replacement is one Sebastian Moran. I suspect that you planned to stay gone till they were all taken care of, but that someone recognized you, despite the weird dye job, and Moran has begun to yank your chain like Moriarty did, by playing on your loyalties while simultaneously separating you from your support system, which you desperately need, you egotistical git. But because he doesn’t know you as well as Moriarty did, and because he’s not a mad drama-queen genius, he’s driven you here instead of away. How’m I doing so far?”

Sherlock still has his second bite of eggs poised between plate and mouth.

John turns to tend to his own breakfast, strangely pleased at the novelty of berating Sherlock with his deductions. He is smiling, not happily, when he comes back to the table.  “Enjoy it while you can, the table’s never been this clean while you were here.”

Sherlock produces a small smile too, in the spirit of cooperation.

“I suspect Mycroft missed you, even if he’s just as egotistical a git as you are. I hope he feels so guilty he develops a damn limp. He’s got eyes on me, thanks for that by the way, so he probably already knows you’re here.” Sherlock fishes his phone out of his dressing gown pocket and displays his text from that morning:

Need to discuss business when you’ve finished settling in.  
MH

“Isn’t he sweet?” There’s some acid in John’s tone.  “He’s also uniquely placed to help with this situation, Sherlock. And he’s already bailed my arse out of significant difficulties once this week.”

Holmes’ eyes slit. “Tell me.” 

“Not another word unless you finish that entire thing.” Both mouths quirk up, and Sherlock sets to work.  

When he’s finished, Sherlock catches John’s eye and puts a finger to his lips. “That enough for you?” His tone is annoyed, but his eyes are soft, and he’s smiling. 

“That is just...disturbing.”  John says, with a ghost of his old admiration, and goes back to the washing up. 

Sherlock tries not to notice the way the dish towel hanging from John’s waistband drapes over his thigh, or the shape of his fingers (short, blunt) as he absently plucks it up to dry their breakfast plates.

It’s not working, so Sherlock grits his teeth and retreats to the shower. 

Sherlock returns, freshly shaven and showered, feet still bare, and John quickly changes the dressing on his back. He dishes out antibiotics while Sherlock shoulders on a deep teal shirt John’s never seen before.  It makes his alien-pale skin nearly glow.

“Let me show you something.”  

John follows Sherlock into his room just in time to see a long leg drawing out the window.  He follows Sherlock onto the fire escape and closes the window behind them.

“Bugged then?”

“Mmm.”

“I’m not even going to ask how you knew that. Search and destroy?”

“I don’t think destroy is necessary.  If they’re not Mycroft’s, they could provide interesting opportunities.” They sit with their backs against the brick. “Tell me what happened this week.”

John flashes to the long, curved lines of a very naked Lily Turner, face slack, arms stretched up to the headboard, rain on the windows. That’s probably not the bit he meant. “I was snatched off the street, on Baker Street. There were three, two to snatch, one to drive. They got me tied and blind, then Mycroft’s people interrupted, which made me feel like I had to go play nice with him. I even managed it for about 15 minutes.”

Sherlock snorts. “No drugs? No knockout?” 

“Not right away, anyway.  The first time they were geared up to give me a benzoopoid that, among other things, is a remarkably good truth drug. I assume you learned about that through the blog.”

“Mmm. And my news feeds.”

The pace of their conversation has changed.  Long moments go by between every exchange, unspoken things running back and forth between them like an invisible carnival ride, little boats circling a closed channel. John is frankly in shock, not just that Sherlock’s returned, but that he’s returned more pliable than his old self by half.  It worries him.

“Sherlock.  You’ve been fed, and bandaged, and gotten what looked suspiciously like a full night’s sleep. You have to tell me.  I have to know.” 

John can’t seem to look away from his lap; he’s already flinching from a blow that hasn’t landed yet. 

“I know. I. Yes.” 

He’s quiet so long they both become very aware of the other sounds around them.  An antenna squeaks in the wind.  Birds perch on wires and ledges, flap and scratch and fidget. Laundry flutters on a neighbor’s fire escape.

“When Moriarty backed me into a corner, there were snipers on you.” Sherlock swallows. “It was...You and Lestrade and Mrs. Hudson. You’d all, in your ways, saved my life, and I did exactly what he wanted. I got emotional.” John thinks he might be less ashamed of his drug habit. 

“Moriarty really did kill himself, he forced my hand.  I had to jump, or you would be shot, right there.  Right in front of me.” He’s seeing nothing in front of him.

“Bit not good. Actually, a lot.” says John tightly.  Because I did that. I saw you jump.

“I know.” But you're stronger than I am. His eyes close, slowly, and open again. “The snipers, they...they died.  But I also learned some things from them.  And I found their backups. And learned some things about the organization. I didn’t think....I couldn’t leave things as they were.”

“As they were, meaning, you couldn’t leave the organization as it was?”   
“There were....” he’s hesitating over words again. “Ramifications.  I thought they would be unacceptable. To you.” 

“To me? Something you thought would be worse than leaving me here, for another....However long, I’m not....”  Breathing is tough again. “I’m having a hard time imagining that you didn’t just do what you bloody well wanted, as usual.” 

“To both of us. I thought.” Sherlock leans his weirdly blonde head against the brick.

“What do you think now?”   
“I’m not sure.”

John lets that go, folding his hands together again and keeping his eyes firmly on the horizon. The mission, he thinks, and it’s a little too much like the Army, which he loved like a dysfunctional spouse. 

“We need to treat this like a case.  We need to just...not get killed, so I have a chance to be angry at you.”  John finally, finally looks at him, and it’s not angry, just tense, so Sherlock feels some relief, even among everything else pressing in, clothes and air and gravity.  The day is too bright for his body, which thinks it should be night, and for his brain, which thinks he should be on the couch in Baker Street for the next month, reading John’s face reading the paper.  

“Are we going to get shot by snipers out here?”

“Maybe.” Sherlock’s mouth quirks, without humor. “But I want to talk to you before we talk to Mycroft, and I can’t think of a better place to do it. Can’t think at all, comes to that.” He steeples his fingers, elbows wrapped around knees drawn up nearly to his chin. It’s a familiar gesture, but the vagueness in his eyes is unfamiliar. The brilliant, unflappable, superior Holmes has disappeared and been replaced by a contained stranger.

“Well, we’re in trouble, then, because this operation pretty much hinges on your brain. Or so I’ve been told. Repeatedly.”     
Another long silence. John keeps looking at him, like the tiny ridges of skin folding under his ears or the beginnings of a curl at the temple are the secret treasure, the key to the mystery. Sherlock feels the gaze like a touch. 

“You’re right, Moran is the current problem, though he’s less into mind games and more into straight violence than Moriarty. He works for the same man Moriarty did. Moriarty never was at the center.  When I saw glimpses of the web, I just had no idea….was too blinded by the game. It’s brilliant, really. Moriarty is like public relations--he pulls flashy stunts, draws people in, new business, and also draws fire, which gives the white hats less time to focus on the less flashy, but far more consistently profitable main lines of business.”   
“You and Mycroft are really quite similar, in your ways.  Also, white hats?  Really? What have you been watching?” It’s almost a joke, so Sherlock almost smiles, just a tightening around his eyes.

“The organization is vast, really, and nothing I would have considered tackling wholesale, certainly not without support.  I knew none of this when I was going after the remnants of Moriarty's people, and by the time I figured it out, it was too late. They definitely want me dead, and they're willing to use you, or anyone else, to get me dead.  Banker's organization is concentrated in arms, drugs, and military contracting. There are support operations as well, corporate and intelligence arms. It's rather like the government of a small country, one that exists like an overlayer of our Britain, and also in other places, some of which barely have  governments of the garden variety. It’s a federation, perhaps, but with a king.

“The arms smuggling operation is almost entirely kaput, due in large part to the fact that the nature of the business requires that they keep large amounts of explosives in relatively vulnerable locations.”

“You blew them up?”  John’s smiling, incredulous.

“For future reference, smoking is a short term, rather than a long term, health risk if you smuggle weapons. The drug smuggling operation will need rebuilding at the upper echelon, and about 25% of the military contracting operation is, if I’m not mistaken, in the process of becoming a national scandal.  Mycroft’s people will handle the rest. Our current problem is PR. ”

 Sherlock digs out his phone and sends a text, while John mulls. His mind feels sharper. “So, this is what you were doing? While you were....gone?”

“Yes.”

“I drank a lot and shagged a couple of nurses, and you took down big hunks of an international crime syndicate.”

“Well, we have to play to our strengths, John.”

“Uh-huh.  I probably am better at shagging.”

Sherlock snorts.  “Time to go see brother dear.” 

He has a shade of his old energy as he slithers back through the bedroom window.  
   
****  
 


	10. A Talk With Mycroft

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sherlock and John go to visit Mycroft; like most things about the Holmes family, the reunion is atypical.

When they leave the flat, Sherlock’s wearing the contacts, and the glasses, and whatever goop is making his brows lighter, and he pulls the Man United sweatshirt over his head; John’s a little startled, again, by the transformation. Sherlock is a changeable creature, but John is the same: same overlarge plaid shirt, same grey at his temples. The same old blue windbreaker bags over the handgun, a longtime friend wedged over his tailbone in an inner-pants holster he’d bought just before Sherlock died. 

Outside, Sherlock, never one for personal space, steers John to the left with a hand on his shoulder, and walks a little closer, bumping his forearm gently into John’s bicep. He smiles winningly and makes a comment about the weather. 

“Where are we going?” It’s disorienting, how good an actor Sherlock is, and now he’s acting rather like…a boyfriend?  A one-night stand? What in the hell? And whatever he’s wearing, is it really going to fool anyone looking for him?

“Just nipping round to the station, luv.” His usual dark baritone is lighter, sweeter. “I rather doubt they’re looking for me here, John,” he follows in an undertone. John’s not that concerned, because he’s busy processing Sherlock’s very interesting closeness.

Sherlock can’t be unaware of his magnetism, since he used it, constantly, to get his way, but John doubts that Sherlock understands the ramifications of manipulating your friends, especially after what might be the most grandiose, unfair manipulation of all time. 

John quietly goes along till they’re on the tube, and Sherlock starts to prowl up the car on god knows what errand. John grabs his hand, and pulls him back, lacing their fingers together. They stand for a moment in tableau, hands warm and dry and folded together, eyes on each other, John’s opaque and obstinate. Sherlock subsides with a small, false smile, and his hand relaxes, and the feeling settles heavy and liquid in John's belly.

Though John allows Sherlock to drag him off the tube, through a maze of downtown streets, and into the lobby of an elegant hotel, he tightens his grip every time Sherlock seems ready to pull free. Their general impression is of a rather elegant sighthound steered by a sturdy and purposeful collie into the elevators, where John finally releases his friend, who’s turned back into Sherlock, and is looking at him with a considering eye. 

He says nothing, though, only paces ahead as the doors slide open onto a spacious guests-only lounge area on the second floor.  A woman is walking confidently toward them, trailing two hounds of her own.  Anthea. She smiles a small, professional smile, as if one of them hasn’t just risen from the dead.  “This way, gentlemen.”

She leads them across to an unobtrusive door placed behind a pillar, which opens onto an unadorned hallway. At the end of the hall, they enter a small, utilitarian sitting room in which Mycroft Holmes and his ubiquitous umbrella are resting.  
   
****

 

“Sherlock.”  Mycroft doesn’t rise.

 “Mycroft. Disappointed?”

Mycroft steeples his fingers in front of the tight line of his mouth, just looking at Sherlock for a long moment. Sherlock stands at haughty attention, allowing himself to be examined, deduced, catalogued. When Mycroft give a long blink, he sits.

“In the drama you seem to feel is necessary. It has been…inconvenient.”

“Lucky you’re above all the drama, then.” John’s shoved his hands in his pockets and leaned on the wall, rather than sitting. The brothers ignore him.

“Major Li?” Mycroft says. Sherlock inclines his head.   
“O’Brien?” Another nod. “McNee?”

“Yes, but Charleton’s still at it. And the damage is done.” 

“So you have three problems.” There’s a slight pause, and a considering look at John.  “No, four.  Five, from a more global perspective, but three that could get you killed straightaway.”

“Three. Moran is the highest probability. Rathbone is icing on the cake, so to speak. But the heads of the hydra will continue to regenerate unless their heart is removed.”

“I don’t think you appreciate the delicacy of four and five, Sherlock. I’m afraid some of Irene’s comments were rather to the point.”

“Not about me.  Rather more about you.”

“Not that comment, the other one.  And you’re still rather focused on the wrong things, don’t you think? Cake, rather than meat and potatoes?  After all, what’s dinner without it?” Mycroft’s smile is tight and patronizing.

“Cake?” Sherlock’s voice is silky. “I wouldn’t know, I haven’t had dinner without it.  I’m not on a diet.” 

John comes forward and takes the third chair, looking from one seething Holmes to the other.  “How I’ve missed this,” he mutters.   
“All right then, Sherlock, what is your suggestion?”

“Divide and conquer. Play to our strengths.”  John snorts, thinking of their conversation earlier, and amusement crosses Sherlock’s face like headlights through fog. “Li’s operation is absolutely your cup of tea, and it’s coming apart beautifully.  Rathbone can be taken on a long con. I’ll transfer my files to you.”

“And you think Moran somehow falls to you?” 

There’s a silence, while they glare at each other. 

"I've arranged a safehouse. Moran’s been rather ham-handed, but he did get the job for a reason.” 

“Being a nutter?”  John interjects. 

“Being a successful nutter. And he has shown a certain....flair for the dramatic himself, don’t you think, Sherlock?”   
Sherlock’s jaw tightens, but he nods.  His eyes are unfocused as he considers.  John’s expecting something between a toddler’s wobbly and the Queen of Hearts, but Sherlock calmly says, “I’ll take the safe house. Mrs. Hudson and Lestrade are priority targets.  And Molly." 

John makes a strangled noise as he realizes--Molly knew.  Of course she did. She was perfectly situated, as a pathologist, and a nearly invisible ally.  

Mycroft nods.  "John?  Will you be joining Sherlock? Or would you like to be placed on protective custody with the others?"

"I will be joining Sherlock. I really, really need to punch him." The anger and hurt in his voice makes Sherlock’s stomach clench.

Mycroft nods, regally.  “I will make the arrangements. May I suggest, Sherlock, that you carefully consider how you might be helpful in this enterprise, rather than detrimental?”

“May I suggest,” John interjects, “That you provide some strategic resources for a change?”  His arms are crossed again, and when Sherlock’s eyes cut across to John, they sweep up from his chest.  Mycroft smirks. “I appreciate the rescue the other night, I really do, but I’m sure a man in your position could be take an active role in this effort.  Which, if I can remind you, is to keep your brother alive.” 

“Is that what we’re doing here? I thought we were bringing down an enormous infrastructure for crime in our kingdom. But either way, I’m sure a man in your position could also be useful.”  

Mycroft’s trying to imply something, the supercilious toff. Sherlock interjects, ignoring him. “I’ll need a laptop. We need another phone, John’s can’t be trusted. And I also need your files. When I have the operation planned, I’ll likely have a shopping list for that as well.” 

“Consider the electronics done. But, may I remind you, Sherlock, this isn’t your operation, it’s mine, and you’re off the books.” 

“Was I ever on them?” 

Mycroft quirks one corner of his mouth and doesn’t take his eyes off Sherlock, who’s rising to his full height, managing to look imposing despite the ridiculous sweatshirt. 

“Let us know when you’re ready.”  He walks to the window, clearly signaling an end to the conversation. 

Mycroft dips into the attache case at his feet--it probably cost more than everything John’s wearing, including the Sig—and fishes out a distressingly thin yellow envelope.  “This is what we have on Banker.  I’ll have Moran’s file assembled and sent over.” 

Mycroft nods and rises, and John with him. Mycroft says, without looking at his brother, “I’m glad you’re alive, Sherlock." He presses his lips into a thin line. "Do try to stay that way. Good day, Captain Watson.  Anthea will be in shortly.”

Sherlock quirks an eyebrow at ‘Captain Watson’ and smirks.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to everybody who's been reading and coming back for more! Short update today, but another one should be up tomorrow with any luck!


	11. Safe as Houses

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They settle into their temporary home; John learns a couple of things.

They’re installed by half seven in a walkup in a brick townhouse in Chelsea. It’s set up rather similarly to Baker Street, but all on one floor, kitchen, living room, two bedrooms and a bath.

Mycroft’s office has dropped off a pair of suitcases with clothing and toiletries. “My god, where did these come from?” John holds up a pair of silky cotton pyjama pants the livid green of an old bruise.  Sherlock appears, leaning on the doorjamb and eyeing John’s clothing with amusement.  A stack of plain white undershirts and boxers, sturdy brogans, a pair of dark jeans, a pair of crisp wool flannels, a jacket, two shirts, one white and one a tiny blue print, and a jumper, thin wool in a rich warm brown.  He takes it in with one glance; clearly chosen with flair, probably by the multitalented Anthea. “Problem?”

John’s hanging things up, methodically, shaking his head a little. “I just thought, you know, we’d get our own stuff.  Glad I grabbed my own gun before I left.”

“Well, we were on our way to see Mycroft. It could always come to that with him. But it’s not so bad, is it? Having flattering clothes?”

John sends him an exasperated look. 

“So, can we call for food?”

“Unless I’m much mistaken, there will be some already here.  I gather the nice young couple downstairs, either of whom could probably kill us with a plastic fork, are in charge of procurement activities.”  
   
****

 

Over dinner, they split the folder’s contents and John begins to form a clearer picture.  The “PR” branch they’re after, headed by Moran, appears to have individual cells, like a terrorist organization, with limited scope and little contact with one another. Intelligence on them is based, it would seem, primarily on a single bust which cracked a cell doing corporate espionage on a major IT services provider. During that evolution, a manager who was in leaking information to MI6 was executed in the lobby of the main building during the middle of the business day.  The point was made, presumably. 

Sherlock adds three names from the file to a list he’s started: snipers McAdams, van Breen, and Sethi. 

“But they’re dead, aren’t they?” 

“They are.  But at least two served in the British military, and I’m almost certain one was a commando.  Which means connections. I’m texting Mycroft for access to service records. Their service dates overlap some with yours.”  

“Mmm. I recognize Lakesh Sethi's name, but I didn't know him. I might have mates that did."

"That would be helpful.  And you may recognize their pictures when we get the records.  There is one of Moran."

 He passes John a photograph, purported to be of the primary enforcer, Moran.  It’s a grainy, atmospheric black and white, taken from a high angle, of a man who is clearly military, though he's in civilian dress. He's got a strong jaw and brow, and a lot of muscle on a medium sized frame.  He is carrying a long case, probably a rifle case. 

It's not this man, but the one behind him that arrests John's gaze. He's wearing a t-shirt that reveals solid muscle under elaborate tattoos down both arms. The buzz of hair on his head is a medium brown, there’s a hash of scars on his left thumb and, though it isn’t visible in the picture, a tattoo of a black falcon hovers over the base of his neck. He and Moran are standing too close for strangers, especially strangers used to dangerous situations; they are friends. Or lovers. John's mind helpfully supplies.

He sneaks a look at Sherlock under the guise of taking another bite.  He’s raptly reading the information in front of him.  All the better. 

John turns the next sheet, but doesn’t really read it.  This is something he needs to think about. 

Sherlock begins to plan. They need to locate, and they need to neutralize. On the off chance, he sends a text: 

_Moran or Banker?  
SH _

They’re still silently sitting at the table, John going over the paper for the fourth time and Sherlock poring over the military records Mycroft’s sent, when Sherlock’s phone moans, and he snatches it up avidly. 

“John, she knows what he likes!”

John experiences something that’s nearly a flashback and leaves a distinct tinge of nausea in his midsection. “Not dead, then.” I’m going to kill Mycroft.

“No. Indeed not.”  Sherlock’s still gleefully texting.

“Seems to be going around.”

Sherlock has been in contact with Irene of all people, while John was on his knees at his grave. John’s chair hits the wall hard; Sherlock looks up with surprise. John goes to his room, slamming the door as the only allowable vent for the red wash of hurt and anger.  

Back at Baker Street, John would go for a long walk, have a pint at their local, give himself a few hours’ vacation from Sherlock, but here, the bedroom feels like a cage. Not 48 hours earlier he would have given almost anything for Sherlock’s presence; now every point of contact hurts like flame. At least I’m not cold anymore, he thinks with a snort, and starts with the pushups.

 

***

 

Just before four, John’s woken with the swiftness common to soldiers and doctors by the sound of retching. After a full minute’s debate along the lines of he’s a grown man, Watson, he can handle puking on his own, and if he can’t handle eating on his own, why would he be able to handle puking on his own?  and what if he’s really sick? has he taken something? and He’s fine, you’re not his ‘mummy’. In the end, he decides to give it 15 minutes, but at 11, he hears the flush, and the water, and the door opening, and Sherlock padding past his door.  Neither of them sleeps any more, until John finally drops off as the light begins to spread in the sky.  
 


	12. A Walk Abroad

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which John goes for a walk, meets an old friend, and has an adventure.

When John gives up on sleep, at ten the next morning, Sherlock’s ensconced in an armchair, wrapped in a throw, absolutely motionless, eyes closed and steepled fingers pressed to his lips.  John ignores him and makes himself breakfast and retires to his room to call a number he’s had for so long he’s not sure it’ll be good anymore.  

“Doc!  As I live and breathe.”

"You in the country at her majesty's pleasure, Gennings?” 

“What’s wrong?”  

John takes a well-planned breath. “I just want to catch up.”  In the silence he can picture Gennings’ raised eyebrow.  “Not on the phone.” Because Mycroft’s listening.

“At your service, Cap.” 

“I’m in Chelsea. Can we meet?” 

“I’m about an hour out.  Where and when?” 

“Noon at, uh,” he’s forgotten his laptop is back at Baker Street. “Shit, how did people do this stuff before google? Can you look up someplace?”  

“Sure.” There’s a pause, some typing. “The King’s Arms?” 

“Fine, I’ll find it.” 

He does, in an old directory tucked in a drawer in the kitchen. Sherlock’s still and hasn’t opened his eyes. John closes the door quietly on his way out; he has half an hour or so to get a head start on the drinking, and think about what he can say. It’s a legitimate fact-finding mission, but it’s also—he’s looking forward to being with someone who knows John Watson. Maybe Gennings can remind him who that is.

He’s a bit surprised the nice young couple downstairs don’t stop him on his way out, and though he knows, logically, he’ll be followed, it still feels good to walk down the street.   
   
****  
   
The King’s Arms turns out to be a decent pub, a little on the commercial side, but neither grimy nor twee, and John finds a seat in a rear corner, which gives him a good view of the doors, and gives anyone outside no shot at him.  After the first pint, he’s wondering if the couch was really a great plan, because it’s very comfortable, and he’s gotten very little sleep. 

“Doc!” 

Gennings is prompt, and put together, which makes John try to remember when his last haircut was, even as he shakes hands and gives him the one-armed hug. The handsome bastard has a fresh buzz cut and a sharp shirt, probably just because he can, because he’s not in some sand pit playing footsie with six different splinter groups and eating from cardboard boxes. His eyebrows are still black and thick, but there’s a dusting of silver now in the black stubble on his head.

They lean back and John gets the once-over, which, thank God, isn’t as thorough as Sherlock’s, but still pretty damn astute.   
“Not sleepin’ too much, are ya?” They sit on the couch.

“Not just lately, no.” 

“Whatcha been up to?  Still patching people up?” 

“Ah, yeah.  Yeah, I am.” John thinks of the A & E he’s not staffing today, because on Wednesday he was a perfectly normal doctor, and on Saturday, he’s stuck in a weird spy movie.  “You still bustin’ em up?” 

“When I get a chance.” He sucks his teeth. 

"How long you been home?” 

“Just about two months.” He folds his big hands and smiles wryly. “I can’t decide if it’s harder to be here or there.” 

“Know the feeling.”  John mimics his posture, sitting beside him, and thinks back to the day before, sitting beside Sherlock on the fire escape. 

“All right, cough it up. Woman problems?” 

“Not exactly.” Helpless little not-a-laugh. 

“Man problems?”  Gennings tilts a conspiratorial grin his way, but his eyes are sharp as ever.  John scratches his nose. 

“I . . . It’s complicated. I’m, honestly, I’m not even sure what to say about that.” 

“Well, I’m going to need more than maybe a complicated man problem.” 

“I’m not sure if.  Shit, I had no idea this was going to be so hard.” For a horrifying moment, he thinks he might actually tear up, just to wipe out what little self-respect he still had.

“My friend, that’s why you have me, to figure this shit out." He claps a meaty hand on John's shoulder.  "Diagnosis:  you need more booze.” He gets them both another pint, which gives John a chance to get his shit together, a bit. 

“I…really don’t need more booze.”  He grins and drinks it anyway. “So, let’s move on to something less confusing.  Remember Lakesh Sethi?” 

“Yes.” 

“When did you last hear news of him?” 

“About...probably about a year and a half ago, he was shipping for home with his section and stopped through on their way to Kandahar. He wasn’t getting out or anything though.  Why do you ask?” 

“So he was still active duty, then?” 

“Yeah, like I said, it’s been a while, but yeah. He got real political, seems like, started spouting off some pretty unpopular shit. He also got a little trigger happy—you know the type.” 

“Yeah. What about McAdams, ah, Seth?” 

"I remember him, but I don’t know what he’s doing now; he got out two years ago, I know, kept talking about going back to dear old Aberdeen, or some shit like that, but a lot of us talk like that.” 

“Tell me. What about Kelley?” 

“That bastard? Hopefully in an early grave.” 

“He’s not.” John’s voice comes out tight. 

“You seen him?”

“No, but I expect to.  I want to know what I’m up against, as much as I can.” 

“He got out not long after you did, and good riddance. You know, Blackwood was on his team before we got shuffled together, but he was the only one of ours. He’d probably know more. What makes you think you’ll see him?”

“You got contact info for Blackwood?” 

“I do.”  John gets a long look, which he meets with the mild obstinance which is his first line of defense.  “I’m going to let you not tell me what’s going on, but you be careful, whatever it is.” 

He gives John Blackwood’s number, and they spend another half hour wolfing down lunch while John redirects any query about his own activities.

“You gonna tell me what the not-a-man-problem is?” 

“No.  I-I, no.”  He can’t think of anything to say. 

“I want to meet him, now.  Any man who could get our sensible Doc all twisted up….” 

“It’s just…well. A difficult situation.” John looks down at his hands.

“Well, invading Afghanistan is child’s play.”

“Yeah, and look how well that’s gone.”

“That’s because they’re not taking my advice.” They grin. John rubs a thumb over his eyebrow.

“Have you heard of Sherlock Holmes?”

“No, should I?”

“Look him up when you get home.” John sets his drink carefully on the coaster.

“In that case, let me suggest this.” Gennings leans forward with his beefy forearms on his knees. “Maybe you’ve forgotten, but you’re a goddamn commando too.”

“Was. Kind of. I was a medic first, Gennings, not like you guys. Now I’m just a doctor, with a bum shoulder and a fuzzy tattoo.”

“Bullshit. You passed the training, like the rest of us.  And you’re shrimpy, so you already know this, but it ain’t here, doc,” he taps his bicep, “It’s here.” He taps his forehead. “Don’t let some civvie get the best of you.”

In the way of old friends, they don’t need to pretend they’ll get together more often, but remembering what’s between them is relaxing, even if the fact-finding wasn’t too productive, and John feels like himself for the first time in nearly a year.  Knowing Sherlock will be there when he gets back is upsetting, but it’s worlds less upsetting than knowing he won’t.

When John and Gennings leave the pub, they turn back toward John’s walk home, and John will remember later seeing the toe of his shoe just hit the edge of a little slice of sun coming from between the buildings, right before he heard the pop of a far off shot and Gennings’ shout.  Gennings’ left arm blooms blood, and John shoves them both down, aiming for the little alleyway, which was his best shot of breaking the line of fire. A glance tells him the wound isn't even close to life threatening, but it is bleeding a lot. He pulls off his jacket and uses it to both prop the arm up a bit and apply pressure while he dialed nine nine nine. Gennings smiles at him, tightly.  “I knew I should have made you give me details.”

“You and who else?” John holds his right arm stiff to allow him to put pressure with his body weight, while his left is on his gun butt, afraid to draw as people begin to gather, and afraid not to draw, as he doesn’t know where the threat is coming from.  He’s, oddly, rather more calm through this process than he has been at any time in the last two days; he knows the rhythm of this situation, has survived it more than once. 

The ambulance pulls up; the two paramedics are professional and blessedly quick, stabilizing Gennings and loading him on a stretcher while he protests that he’s perfectly ambulatory. “I’m a doctor, listen, I need to ride along with him.”  The EMT is fitting an oxygen mask on Gennings while he bitches about Watson fucking up his tattoo. 

“Right, be quick then.”  The EMT nods him up into the back.

The doors close as Watson reaches for his phone, and the second EMT presses something to his face.  He vaguely sees Gennings getting the same treatment, and rolls his eyes as his limbs go slack.  Classic.  
 


	13. Reflections

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Sherlock attempts emotions and winds up with deductions.

When John left, Sherlock was nearly five hours into a detailed consideration of the events since his return and still nearly vibrating with confusion. 

He has enumerated the issues, finally, but with nothing like his usual level of focus and organization.

How is he supposed to work under these conditions? He doesn’t understand why, after wanting nothing more, for months, really, than to have John at his side again, the lightning rod he needed, his thinking is cloudier than ever.  John has always had a way of catching at the corner of something crucial, making the whole picture peel off in one piece for Sherlock’s more orderly mind.  But since he’s been back, 43 hours and 17 minutes, John's presence has been more disruptive than helpful. 

Sherlock has the uncomfortable conviction that it’s him that’s changed, not John.   
He doesn’t understand why Irene set John off. 

John’s understanding of the sentimental world has been invaluable in the past, but just now, John’s sentiment, he feels, is exactly the problem. 

Of course, Sherlock also can’t honestly say he’s without sentiment himself. Life without John was nearly unbearable. He had smoothed the way so effectively that Sherlock hadn’t even noticed the smoothing, until he was without it, and had to attend to all the details of everyday interactions himself. The relentless howl of specifics, and him unable to filter out even the smallest of them, terrified he might miss a crucial clue, or forget something compulsory, like eating.

And aside from convenience, there’s something new, and old, and terrifying about his own reactions. It appears some portion of his autonomic nervous system is now piloted primarily by John’s physical body. Sherlock’s chest tightens when John comes near him. He spends an inordinate amount of the time which should be devoted to finding Moran, and devising a solution to the problem of Banker, instead thinking about John’s hands, which are not large, but are wide and strong, the nails nearly square when they’re freshly trimmed. 

He knew he missed John, desperately, but he thought it was John’s mind he missed, his admiration, his loyalty, having a partner, a friend. John’s beat-up face and dishwater hair had not been on the list of things Sherlock missed, but when they were returned to him, he was somehow touched in places he’d never been aware of.  Also:  on his upper arms, where John’s hands were steady and firm and comforting and exciting.

He is self-aware enough to recognize the seldom felt, attraction, and affection, but the alchemy of emotions seems to have transformed the two into something larger, that cannot be ignored. It’s an equation with a very large set of independent variables, his own attractions and John’s, his own abilities and disabilities, and John’s.

He takes a trip to the mind palace, heading straight for the suite of apartments where information about John Watson lives.  He’d started with a small but conveniently located room on the first floor, but had begun, illogically, to feel guilty about putting someone so important in such an unassuming location, so he’d moved John, lock, stock, and barrel, over the course of three afternoons, sorting the contents thoroughly in the process.  Now John occupies a suite of rather grand apartments on the second floor, with french doors and balconies overlooking a wide park and heavy teak floors covered with impossibly jewel-like persian rugs.

Today Sherlock heads straight for the albums on the shelving between the tall windows, pulling down the most recent to make additional entries.

John in a dirty alley, in a new jumper that makes his hazel eyes resolve to blue, looking shocked and destroyed.  He’s also looking like Sherlock’s the only thing he can see, which is just the way Sherlock likes it; the focus from John is so real and sharp it makes his actual skin hurt, as though perhaps John has superpowers that allow his gaze to burn.  John thought he hadn’t eaten, which was true, but more than that, it was John in the alleyway that made the edges of Sherlock’s vision go grey. It’s not a painless memory, but it’s very good.

John handing him the takeout and taking his violin in the cab, like a hostage, as though he’s afraid Sherlock would leave without him, while they stare, and stare, and stare at each other.

John on the edge of his chair in Baker Street, with a hand on Sherlock’s neck, warm and steady, anchoring him to the world.

John in the kitchen, with his back leaned on the worktop and his face tense, a towel hanging from his waist and his arms crossed and his t-shirt stretched tight…Sherlock goes ramrod straight…and a tattoo peeking out of his short sleeve, which John never wears. The tip of a sword.

Not the insignia of the RAMC.

Sherlock whirls out of the imaginary apartment, flying down the halls, down a long and slightly curved set of marble stairs, to the military history room. On the wall are badges, and badges, and badges, from hundreds of units, mostly from the Crimean War to present, and sure enough, in the modern section, there are perhaps half a dozen of interest, all with a long, narrow blade down the center:  the commando companies. 

So, combat.  Not RAMC.  This was what Mycroft had been on about. And John knew it, obviously. 

And Sherlock would have known it, if he hadn’t been so busy not looking at his own flatmate.  At the way his hands didn’t shake under pressure, and the way he kept his gun close, and the way he woke in the night with sweat and tears and noises they never mentioned.

The ache he felt, knowing John had not told him, surprised him, but also delighted him, that this one person seemed to have a way of surprising him, over and over, and yet being absolutely internally consistent.  John wasn’t constant, and he wasn’t obvious, and he was absolutely not boring, but he looked like he was all three.

What else didn’t he know about John?

He slams the doors to the mind palace.

“John!” The throw around his shoulders crinkles down to his lap.

“John!” In a whirlwind he paces through the small flat, then charges down the stairs, feet still bare, to bang on the door below.    
“Where’s John?”

“He took off about an hour ago.”  Sherlock tries to shoot lasers at him with his eyes.

“Oh, well, that’s fine then.  One of the packages leaves the safe house when no one’s watching?”

“Didn’t say no one was watching.  HQ’s got eyes on him.”

Sherlock makes an inarticulate noise and charges back up the stairs to call Mycroft, but his phone is ringing when he gets there, so he snatches it up. 

“What?”

“Good morning, Sherlock.”  Mycroft, the irritating prat, is trying to get him to mind his manners again.

“Where’s John?”

“I have eyes on him, Sherlock, but I don’t suppose you’ve caught the morning news?”

Sherlock winds himself into a lotus-shaped knot with the laptop on his lap. “Times?”

“Try BBC news.”

Pink.  Anchorwomen and their pink.  Haggerston train station bombing, 16 injured, just before 10:30 a.m.    
“How’s it connected?”

“There’s a delightful graffiti of a deerstalker on the station wall. Along with some numbers I can only assume are code. My people identified it, but the police did not, among all the other input.” Mycroft says “code” as if he’s smelled something unpalatable. “I’ve sent you a hi-res picture.” 

“Seems rather outré, just to get my attention.” 

“Obviously, someone wants your attention rather badly.”

There's a ruffle of paper and Mycroft speaks to someone with him, probably Anthea. “Eyes only, for now. Retrieve if they leave Chelsea, or if harm seems imminent.” 

Sherlock’s spine has uncoiled from lazy S to an exclamation point. “John.” 

“Yes, John. It seems he has been meeting with a former army colleague, and then getting abducted.  Not to worry, we’ll retrieve him shortly.  He has a tracking device.”

Sherlock paces.  “Shoes?”

“And belt. And phone.”

“All easily removed. So glad you planned for this.  And let him leave in the first place.”

“I think, Sherlock, that you should be considering what made him want to leave.”  That was exactly what Sherlock had been doing, of course.  “And you’re not going.” Mycroft correctly interpreted the flurry of movement as Sherlock ditched the throw blanket and took two long steps toward the hallway.

“Try and stop me.”

“I already have. I know you value your privacy, so I’ve set it up as outside security, but believe me, the first time you test it, you will be throwing your little tantrums in front of Her Majesty’s finest.” 

“Like I couldn’t outsmart Her Majesty’s finest.” 

“I’ve no doubt you could, which is why they’re also my finest, and well-prepared for dealing with imprudent little brothers with no sense of self-preservation.”  His voice softens at Sherlock’s mutinous vocalization. “Let me take care of John.”

“Absolutely not. You can’t. He’s not. He could already be dead, Mycroft.” Sherlock’s livid, and he would never admit aloud that it’s mostly at himself. 

“He’s not. If they’d wanted him dead, the sniper would have simply shot him, instead of injuring his friend. We’ll discuss the train incident later.” Mycroft hangs up on Sherlock, who heaves a handy vase at the wall.

***

Sherlock's dressed and back in the living room in 15 minutes, madly digging fingers through his hair. There is absolutely nothing he can do.  He suspects strongly the bombing means nothing, really. And he knows that John's absence is meant to distract and threaten him, which it is doing, very effectively. But distract him from what? The bombing? It doesn't make sense. What is the actual aim?

He folds onto the nearest surface to wait, trying to keep his mind on Moran, Kelley, and their boss, rather than on John's absence, and John's presence, and John's military contacts, and John’s anger. He texts Mycroft six times (twice to request the recordings from John's meeting, which Mycroft refuses to give him, and four times to ask if there's any further news).  He starts to text Lestrade, Mrs. Hudson, anyone, before realizing that they all still believe he's dead, and really, that's better for now, since it makes them not as attractive as targets, the way John....John.  Again.  

The seventh time he texts Mycroft, John is fine, is on his way back.

Sherlock has calmed down just enough to realize that John is very much in control of his happiness now.  He's never considered happiness a priority, or even a goal; he was satisfied with 'busy' and 'interested'.  But then there was John, and busy became content.  And interested became happy. And living without John, after living with John...untenable. 

"Think, think!" he says it aloud, as he paces furiously.  John could take his happiness, his peace of mind, his sanity, and walk out the door at any time. 

Well, after the safe house. 

When normal people get in these situations, Sherlock thinks with contempt, they cement their relationships by repetitive action, the power of habit, or by deepening the relationship, usually sexually or through social contracts such as tribe membership.  But he’s aware that attempting to deepen a relationship, when only one party is interested in doing so, also may result in anything from bitter disappointment to violence.  Violence, Sherlock doesn't mind.  Failure, he minds.  

And, it turns out, being without John, he also minds.  Very much.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've borrowed from the ideas in AbundantlyQueer's meta on John Watson's confusing military career here, and there's a hat-tip to TTOBB in the previous chapter. In fact, this whole story is based on an idea AQ put forth in a meta, that TTOBB was written on the premise that both Sherlock and John were coming from a place of strength when they met, whereas in canon, Sherlock is in a place of strength and John is not. I tried to do the remaining permutation here, that John is coping, and mostly gets himself put together, and Sherlock does not. Really not.
> 
> Thanks for sticking with me (and poor John and Sherlock, who are, collectively, a total mess)! It's so encouraging and helpful to get feedback, so thanks to everybody who's left kudos and comments.


	14. Surprise

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> John comes back, and comes up with a plan.

John's rubbing at the back of his head as he comes through the door, pushing shards of the broken vase out of the way with the door sweep. Sherlock is curled on the coffee table, chin to knees and fingers pressed (too hard) into his eye sockets.  

"Had a bit of a tantrum, have we?"

Sherlock moves his hands, finally, and turns his head, owl-like, to John, showing bruising where he's been pressing into his own eye sockets. John gently closes the door behind him. 

"I'm sorry, Sherlock," he sighs.

“No problem at all. I needed to spend 2 hours and 17 minutes under house arrest while my brother rescues you, again, and I have been sent a message”—this with derision—“to figure out but I can't think about anything except what—“ he sucks in a big breath, “—I can’t get any information because I'm dead, and I’m stuck in this house, and I have no....data!"  This uncharacteristically incoherent tirade comes to a crescendo with long limbs gesturing awkwardly as he paces away in great strides to the window. The calm approach he'd planned is apparently not going to happen; his treacherous body is achy and foreign.

"I'm sorry.  I shouldn't have left. I should have talked to you, before. I needed to get some things straight in my own head. This whole situation is...” he trails off.  “Sherlock?...Do you—do you have to keep your hair like that?" 

This surprises Sherlock enough that he turns to look at John. John looks like he’s also surprised, and embarrassed.

"I really don't think my hair is mission-critical at the moment." But Sherlock’s head is cocked, and he's looking closely at John. Dressed with care, shaved and actually combed a part in his hair rather than letting it fall where it falls.  Cares about his impression but wasn't trying to impress; he would have worn the new jacket instead of his old black button-up coat. The coat is missing, probably used as a dressing, and his right sleeve is bloody. He's uninjured, generally, just a problem in his lower back, probably incurred when tossed from the vehicle, probably a lorry or ambulance, as he was tossed straight out the back rather than the side. Has taken to wearing an actual holster for his handgun, didn't spot that right away, but it must be more comfortable and more secure than his waistband.  Unless you're rolling on it as you're tossed from a moving vehicle.

It's been rather a long silence, while John waits for the assessment to end.

"Need some ice?  For your back?"

"It's, uh, not mission-critical at the moment." A barely-perceptible fraction of the pressure in Sherlock's chest eases at John's tiny smile. "I can give you a little more data, not much. If you want."

"Please."

"I met a mate from the service this morning.  Gennings.  He was, I was on a team with him, in Afghanistan. We were--are--friends."

"Mm."

"I called him because I thought he could tell me something more about the men in the file." That isn’t strictly true, but he’s not going to mention the other reasons.  "I thought he might know more about them, but he didn't know much.  He had more contact with Moran, and confirmed my memory.  He was--violent.” John ruffles a hand up the back of his head. “I mean, in context it wasn't so noticeable at first, because, we were there to fight, you know?  But over time you learn who's there because they believe in it, and who's there because they have nowhere else to go, who's there because they're driven to do it, and who’s there because they...enjoy it."

"Which were you?" It popped out before he could censor it, and again, not mission-critical, not Banker, Moran, crime, safety.

"Well, I wasn't like him. He was cruel, it was like something he had in him that had to come out, but he was...good at hiding it. Most of the guys liked him, he was kind of a man's man among man's men, if that makes sense."

"Not remotely." 

"No, I suppose not. You know this is a sensitive topic for me, right?" He says it quietly. He's feeling his way with the new Sherlock, but John knows that sometimes Sherlock’s understanding of the emotional dimension of a conversation lags. Sherlock looks at him, waiting, but he shakes his head. "I don't think anything I knew there can really be helpful here, except in a general sense.  The only thing I can tell you for sure is that he's manipulative, but not actually that smart.  I just don't see him as the puppeteer on all this.  I think there has to be someone else pulling the strings, in a pretty specific way."

Sherlock nods, as this dovetails nicely with the data he already has, about which he cannot talk to John, because it has to do with Irene, which is apparently also a sensitive topic. 

Sherlock unfolds from the armchair where he'd landed to pace back to the window. The soft space just south of his sternum is burning.

"Are you leaving again?"

"Um, I think Mycroft's people might actually forcibly restrain me, so, no." John's smiling again, but not like he's happy.  It's more of a grimace, really.

"That's not what I meant." Sherlock's doing that over-the-shoulder sidelong gaze.

"Oh. Well, I'd like to point out, I didn't really leave this morning.  I mean, I left the house, but, it's not like…” He makes a frustrated little noise. “I was coming back.  If I didn't, you know, get kidnapped by a gang of international....whatever these people are. They certainly don’t seem to have a manpower problem,” He mutters.

Sherlock just looks at him.

"Well, okay, it can't be a bad idea to just have this out, a bit.  Because the question for me is:  are you leaving?  And I think given the circumstances you absolutely have to answer first."

Sherlock looks at him for a beat, expression absolutely neutral, while the idea congeals in his throat. It must show in his face.

"Sherlock, I'm not saying I want you to leave, I'm asking, I'm asking--" Damn it.  "Stop. Will you stop pacing." He gets in the way of the pacing, just grabs the upper arms like he had in the alley--god, it seems like years ago.

"Asking what?"

The strange, blondish Sherlock is intent on him, intelligent, but not understanding, because this is emotional and it's not...logical.  John can't hold the gaze; he drops it and forces out the question.

"I'm asking, if. If we're going back to--the way things were.  When this is over, are we going back to Baker Street, together, and solving crimes, and...whatever.  Whatever it was we did before."

"I...Baker Street.” He swallows, throat tight again. “Yes.  But it's not the highest probability.  The highest probability is that one or both of us dies."

"Yeah, well, that was always a possibility,”  John sighs, sits.  He supposes that's as close to a hope as he's likely to hear from someone so focused on the present. “But thank you for not saying it out loud ever again.  The important thing is that we have a reason not to."

Holmes shrugs a shoulder and sits across from John, "Well, we'll always have Baker Street."

John stares at him.  He couldn't possibly be referring to Casablanca, the man has no knowledge of pop culture whatsoever.  

"Does that mean no, you're not leaving again?” John says, “Because that was unfair at best." 

"No, I'm not leaving again."  

John's posture still looks defeated, but he meets Sherlock's eyes. "So, then, let me be clear. I am not leaving. I am not quitting until you do, and given my track record, probably not even then. I will get angry, and frustrated, and disappointed, but I will not leave. Indefinitely. In return, you need to be honest with me about what in the hell is going on. Because you lied to me, in a big way, and I still don’t understand it, and I’m sure you know, at least intellectually, that trust needs to be earned."

"Irene told me some things."  It pops out, unbidden. 

John drops his eyes.  He fishes the gun out of its holster and pops the magazine and puts it in his pocket.  He checks the chamber and leaves the gun on the coffee table. Sherlock grinds his teeth.

 “I will tell you, but...Mycroft let you go this morning.  I don’t trust him, and I don’t care if he knows it.” This to the room at large.

“Mycroft wasn’t the only one that let me go this morning.”  John’s eyes are on his now, as neutral as he can make them, which is dark and a little disappointed. “Difference is, he could have stopped me with armed guards, and you could have stopped me by talking to me.”

Sherlock looks as though John’s just uttered absolute nonsense.

“And I don’t know if you’ve realized this yet, as our resident genius, but now that Moriarty’s gone, there’s nobody in this just to play with your mind, or entertain themselves or you. They want you dead, and no longer a problem. They could have killed me this morning, and they could have killed Gennings, who isn’t even involved except that I involved him, by asking some questions I shouldn’t have asked. I made a mistake, and he’s paying for it. The only reason we lived is because they wanted to make the threat plain to you, and they want you to continue to have something to lose. Because if they can shoot the tattoo off a marine, they sure didn’t have to miss my head.”

"Moriarty, he had played me. When I....left." Sherlock's lips are thin, pressed together. "He used my pride, and he knew I had come to...care...for people around me. And I didn't understand, I thought he was trying to win, but winning…If it meant inflicting the most pain.  I suppose he did win." Caring is not an advantage.

"There was going to be pain no matter what decision you made in that situation.  But that one, it affected all of the people who cared  about you, and even the people who didn't know you, but believed in you anyway.  You were still trying to control the situation, for all of us, but you totally missed the point...one of the first things they try to teach you, when you go into the military, is that the team is greater than any one person, that you have to count on the people around you. You can't make decisions without it affecting the other people on your team."

"Which is undoubtedly why you estranged your sister and squatted by yourself in a miserable bedsit when you were discharged."

“You know nothing about that.  Nothing."  John snaps.  "You don't get to tell me about teamwork, or human connection, or any of that." He sees hurt flick across Sherlock's face before he turns away to the unfamiliar window in the unfamiliar flat.  "Jesus."  Just when he thinks he's regaining his balance, Sherlock will make some gesture or expression that he's seen a hundred times, in another context, that was inexplicably dear to him, though he didn't realize it.  Absence makes the heart grow fonder. 

“That’s what the bombing was about.” 

“Bombing?” 

While Sherlock’s filling him in, a text dings on his phone, and Sherlock narrows his eyes at it, then dives for his laptop. 

He’s clicking away while John digs up an ice pack in the well-stocked freezer and texts Mycroft for Gennings’ status.  John opens the apartment door. 

“John!” Sherlock looks up with alarm. 

“Just going downstairs, to get a bandage.” 

“Oh.” John hears Sherlock behind him, coming to the door to watch him head down stairs, and smiles a tiny, satisfied smile.  Let the infuriating bastard worry for a change.  
   
****

 

An hour later, Sherlock interrupts John’s fifth re-reading of the file from Mycroft. 

“They sent me a message.  Encoded, of course. I have to figure out their clue," this he says as though he's a teenage girl forced to attend the prom with the chess club president, "and pick up a ‘package’ before 10:29 tomorrow.”

 John hmphs; this is normal, Baker-street normal, anyway, so he goes back to the tea, and the file.  Soon the file is exhausted, and he turns to the telly, though mostly he's thinking through how he'll announce to the world that Sherlock is back. Because it looks, increasingly, like he's back. He's alternately pacing and staring holes in the laptop screen, and curled in the chair with eyes closed and fingers and thumbs touching.

It's not long after ten when Holmes announces that the code is pathetic. 

“The location is Cuttel Square. There is an associated threat, and an associated reward.  I get information that will allow me to prevent another train station bombing; they get a chance to kill me.  Everyone wins.” Holmes wrinkles his nose.  “Inelegant.  Ham-fisted.  Not Moriarty’s style at all.”

 “Well, it wouldn’t be, would it? And like I said before, no one involved in this cares how clever you are or aren't. Can't you just send a stand-in?”

"It's hardly likely anyone wants to stand in for that particular job, and they are using biometrics, in any case."

"How in the world?"

Holmes grimaces.  "I was working for one of their companies in Afghanistan; I had biometric data taken for my security clearance.  Apparently they've figured out it was me."

"You're kidding.  You didn't clean up after yourself?"

"I left in a hurry."  Sherlock's face is closed.  John's text alert dings.   

Condition stable, will be released in the morning. No permanent damage. Will be teated as a service injury. -MH 

This settles John’s stomach enough that he considers getting something into Sherlock’s. As he putters in the kitchen, he considers the new Sherlock. The long lines of the limbs as he paces are the same, the restless energy’s the same, but there’s almost a desperation to it, as if all that rich thrill that used to fuel his thinking has been replaced by a leaner mixture.

“Why not pull a Thomas Crown Affair on them?” 

“What?”  John’s hands are on the dishtowel again, and it's absolutely not erotic by any external criteria, but it sends a hot flush from Sherlock's belly button to his knees. He's momentarily unable to look away, then he scowls and about-faces.  Wall.  No, unacceptable. Door. Coffee Table. Vapid landscape, mass-market print from the late 1980s, left handed painter.  No. John. This phenomenon is not getting easier to handle, and it's not just his body betraying him, but his treacherous mind, which keeps his stomach burning and his cheeks flushed, even when he very resolutely does not think about it.  
   
“What in the world is wrong with you?”  John smiles and flips the sandwiches he’s grilling. “Of course you don’t know the Thomas Crown Affair.  It’s this great 1960s heist movie, you should really...but it was remade in the late 1990s, and in the final scene of the remake, this big museum heist, right under the noses of the police, they make away with that famous painting,” he screws up his face, “The guy with the apple for a head?”

“The Son of Man.”

“You know that, but you don’t know about the solar system?  Really?” 

“Well, one is more likely to be stolen than the other.” 

“Ok, point. So...anyway...the bad guys get everybody dressed up in the same damn outfit, the suit, and tie, and the hat, and they walk right out of the damn place because there are so many people dressed like that.”

“So, you’re suggesting that we send a whole cadre of behatted Holmeses?”

“Well, in word, yeah. It could work.”

“Yes, if by ‘work’ you mean enrage them and also prevent them from shooting me.” A small, sly smile crosses his face, and he doesn't, somehow, look the least bit happy. He calls Mycroft with his eyes on John.  "Mycroft. We have a plan."

They talk over the weaknesses.  Or rather, Sherlock declaims, and John hums noncommittally and pushes tea and toast lavishly decorated with butter and honey his way.  

“We have, really, no idea what's in the box,” his eyes gleam as he says this—there’s nothing that magnetizes Sherlock like something he doesn’t know— “and no particular reason to believe that the "clue" is truthful. We have no way to prevent a non-sniper attack, because though it would be possible to close the square, it's certainly not possible to close every building with a sight line to it.”

“Plus, I’m just not sure a hundred Sherlock’s isn’t a logistical nightmare in any case,” John grins, “About 23 of them would be thinking at any given time, and put off by the other 77, who would be pacing around and playing violin all in different keys, and deducing each other’s shoe mud and shirt-cuffs…” He trails off, still gleefully applying his writer’s imagination, while Sherlock wrestles his broad smirk down to a tiny smile.


	15. In the Night

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> John doesn't exactly learn Sherlock's problems, but he proposes a remedy anyway.

John hears the noise at 03:13, and pulls himself out of bed and pads down to the bathroom in bare feet and limey green pajamas.

“Sherlock?”

The loo flushes.  

“Can I come in?”

John eases the door open to find Sherlock, weak and wrecked, shining with sweat and resting his forehead on the toilet.  He runs a little water in one of the glasses on the counter and crouches down.  “Are you okay?” John lays gentle fingers on Sherlock’s shoulder and is shocked by an explosion of motion as Sherlock flinches away from him, into the corner between the wall and the tub, throwing his elbow out and catching John clumsily on the chin. John goes down on his arse, but miraculously doesn’t spill the water. Sherlock’s face flashes a startling bolt of shame, then goes blank again, admitting nothing. All of it looks rather familiar to John.

“Shit, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you.” Shit. Shit. I knew something was wrong. 

John slides around, leaning his back against the vanity and tucking his knees up so he’s not blocking Sherlock’s exit. He leans his head back so he’s looking at the ceiling, trying to be as nonthreatening as possible, and starts talking quietly, as if this is a regular conversation. He knows it’s not.

“I knew a lot of guys, in the service, who saw bad stuff.  Did bad stuff. Had bad stuff done to them. All of the above.” he huffs out a breath. “They, uh, had to find ways to work it out. Run it out, fight it out, fuck it out, you know, whatever. If they didn’t, their bodies found ways to get it out.” Drugs, he thinks, with Sherlock, or other self-abuse. “I don’t know…I don’t know what’s going on here, and I’m not asking. But, I. You said you are staying. So, I don’t know, do what you have to do.” He lets silence gather between them. “I’ll help you do it, if I can. But it’s got to be done.” He swallows around what he needs to say next. It feels sharp in his throat. "I need you to. Make it."

He looks over, and Sherlock’s cheek is still on the cool tile, and his eyes slitted.  He’s silent long enough that John gets up to go. 

“What did you do?”  Sherlock’s voice is hoarse from throwing up, even deeper than usual.

“All of the above, sometimes. I made a lot of mistakes.”  John pauses with his hand on the doorknob. “While you were,” dead. “Gone. I lifted weights a lot. I drank more than I should, and I liked it more than I should. I slept with people I didn’t want. I’m not saying it was all healthy. But I was making it.” Silence stretches out again, and finally John shifts. “Listen. Would...I’d like to try an experiment.”

Sherlock’s eyes finally slide to him. 

“I thought that might be up your alley. Can I sit beside you?”

A barely perceptible nod.

John fits himself between Sherlock and the toilet, back to the cool tub, and puts his left hand on the floor between them. “Put your right hand down, and keep looking at it.”  Very specific, very calm. Sherlock’s right arm unwinds from around his knees and deposits his hand on the floor between them. He ignores the directions and looks at John’s face. 

John scoots close enough to ring Sherlock’s wrist with his hand, contact light and warm, taking his pulse. It widens Sherlock’s eyes—John couldn’t possibly know about that time with Irene, about the way her face lied to him and her physiology didn’t. John’s face isn’t lying; he’s ignoring Sherlock and watching their hands, together on the cool tile.

Sherlock’s pulse is fast, reedy. John counts to a hundred. Sherlock’s pulse and breathing are calming, and he’s looking at John as if he’s waiting for something to happen.

John drops his hand to rest on top of Sherlock’s, letting gravity interleave their fingers briefly.

“That worked pretty well, as proof of concept.”  Sherlock nods, minutely. John gives a businesslike nod. “Meet me in the living room, and we’ll give something a try.” He gently disengages and leaves the room, shaking his head a bit. Only Sherlock would need an actual doctor to prescribe a little human comfort.

When Sherlock joins him, teeth clean and face washed, John hands him the duvet off his bed and wedges himself into the corner of the sofa, with the throw pillow propped just to the left of his left thigh.  “Lie down here.” He turns on the telly, on mute, and flips channels, settling on an old Doctor Who.

Sherlock’s motionless for a long moment, and John thinks he’s going protest, to say “boring,” or “plebian,” but he just folds onto his side, duvet rolled tight around him, head on the throw pillow, and doesn’t say a word.

“I’m going to touch your head, okay?” John gets another barely-a-nod, and gently lays his hand on the short waves. He’s still for a minute, two, three, until he feels some of the tension start to fade. Sherlock’s not asleep, or even headed there, but his body is no longer pulled into tight lines. John gently moves his hand, making the same motion over and over, predictable, ruffling the hair from temple to crown, smoothing from crown to temple. John watches, wondering how much of this is simple exhaustion, how much is something else, and if he’ll ever know what.

Sherlock doesn’t sleep for a long time, but John does, with his hand heavy and hot on Sherlock’s head.  

When John wakes in the early morning light, Sherlock is looking out the living room window with the duvet around his shoulders like a king’s cape.


	16. A Hundred Sherlocks

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The operation goes well, but doesn't have the desired effect.

Just before 9 the next day, John and Sherlock are sitting with eight others in a passenger van, all of them in long dark jackets, all of them with deerstalkers on their laps and bluetooth headsets in their ears. When Sherlock looks over, eyes sparkling with amusement, John answers with a wide grin. It's rare, now, and surprising, and pleases Sherlock a great deal. 

"This is possibly the most mental thing we've ever planned,” John says.

There are sixteen buses, at intersections two blocks away from the square proper, full of men in black jackets, from various government agencies, called in at Mycroft's behest to the blocks surrounding the square.  It's a grey day, but the visibility's not poor.

"And, go."  The word comes over the headsets, and the men pile out of the vehicles and onto the streets, calmly walking, singly and in pairs and trios, carrying nothing, newspapers, umbrellas, coffee mugs, phones. Sherlock's texting madly as they join into a trio with a third man, introduced only as Adam, who is reputed to be unbelievably deadly, though he's narrow in the shoulder and not much taller than John.  Sherlock is doing a disturbingly good acting job again; if anyone's been studying video of him, they won't be picking him out by body language. The advance surveillance team has found the drop point overnight, a small lockbox affixed to a statue in the little park in the middle of the square.  It's been quite effectively glued down, and has passed the bomb sniffers and various detection tests; though it's impossible to know for sure, they are reasonably sure there's nothing absolutely deadly about it.  It's a very locked box, in a very public square.

The men mill around in a crowd centered on the box.  Sherlock has his phone out as the fake Sherlocks begin to file by the box, each man putting his thumb on the scanner as he passes. Texts are coming in from Mycroft's security team, updates on surveillance of surrounding buildings, radio chatter.  With high rises all around, there's no way they've blocked every sight line to the box.

John's hyper-aware of all the moving parts, and suddenly what seemed like a brilliant plan in the kitchen last night seems stupid to the point of negligence. What if they start shooting into the crowd? What if the bomb-dogs are wrong and the whole business blows up? What if they have one of those safe-crossbow things like Irene? Irene. Who's alive. He grits his teeth.

And why are there so many civilians in this square?  It's unusual, and not at all comforting.

The three of them join the queue going to the box in a tight knot of Sherlocks, and Sherlock mutters, "And, go."  He sends a text, and thirty seconds later, the 'civilians' start producing umbrellas, of all the weird things, and pop them open with a series of stereo clicks all around the square.  While everyone else gapes at the sight, John pauses for a moment of shock, then bursts into helpless laughter. Sherlock's thumb causes a barely-heard click, and as he moves off, he drags John with him by his sleeve. Adam reaches over to slightly pull the door, just far enough to evade the latch. They file to the left and the next Sherlocks take their place. 

They're milling around the square with more than a hundred people now, half of them toting black umbrellas.  Over the headsets they hear "retreat," and the square starts to empty out into the surrounding streets.  Sherlock shoots John a look.  This is actually the dangerous part; everyone's splitting up onto various paths, with instructions to stay on foot for thirty minutes, then ditch the hats. 

Sherlock's text alert dings twice. One reports the receipt of the contents of the safe (“Utterly useless.”) and promises an unpleasant talk with Mycroft about the umbrellas (“Grow up, Sherlock.”). The other says only:

Congratulations.

****

They're less than two blocks away from the square when John stiffens, tucking his chin slightly under the deerstalker. If Sherlock weren't exquisitely sensitive to the body pacing beside him, he wouldn't have noticed. They take two more steps, and John's sliding his right shoulder in front of Sherlock’s left.  Sherlock looks for the threat with slitted eyes. The street isn't busy, and no one's particularly close. Three people are sitting at tiny tables outside a coffee shop, the first about ten paces forward; all three are men, all three in their middle years.  The closest is reading his phone, a cigarette in one hand. His face is partially obscured by the stupid deerstalker, but from John's angle, he may see more of it.

Two more steps, then everything moves very fast. John shoves Sherlock hard right, out into the street, where he stumbles over Adams, who's yelling into his headset. John takes a long stride as the first man explodes forward and up, dropping paper and cigarette as he swipes a solid left at John's chin. John's already moving and takes only a glancing blow as he winds up to return the favor. It's a little south of his intended landing zone, more on the mouth than the eye, but the man is already whirling to run anyway.  He's got a solid two inches of leg on John, but John's in decent shape, he thinks he can catch him, long-haul, fueled by anger and fear. The man makes it to the end of the block at a sprint, and turns into the next, John at his heels, black coat bagging out behind him. Then John's grabbed hard by one of Mycroft's men, slamming unceremoniously into the bricks at the corner as his momentum carries him, and another man takes up the chase. Their feet slap the pavement, receding into the narrow alley. 

"Goddamnit."  John splits a little blood from where his lip's split and wipes his mouth with the back of his hand.  "Goddamn it."  He glares at the bear-sized man.

"Respectfully, sir, I would be in deep shit if I let you run off."

John's still pissed.  He turns back without further comment, to where Adams and a little knot of his colleagues are clustered around Sherlock. He’s crouched over the cigarette, looking at it through a small lens, scooping it into a zipper bag.  He looks up, inscrutable, eyes flicking over the split lip and the still-heavy motion of John’s chest. The tableau is broken as a long, shiny black car pulls up and Sherlock rises like a marionette on strings.

***

On the way back downtown, Sherlock finally speaks.  "How did you know?"

"Know what?"  John's stalling, but inevitably, he'll have to say it; keeping secrets from Sherlock Holmes is pretty much impossible.

"Don't pretend you're stupid. We passed 13 other uninvolved pedestrians, and deduction isn’t really your strong suit.”

"I recognized him." It's quiet in the car.  John's studying the stream of buildings, and cars, and people sliding by the window.  So many moving parts, all running clockwork-fast. “We’ll talk about it later, Sherlock.”


	17. The Unspeakable

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> John makes a point.

John's face folds into tense creases that linger for the entire ride. Sherlock watches, through the little adrenalin buzz from their adventure. He finds he can’t trust his memory: had John always looked like this after a near miss, and he’d never noticed?  Was this deliberate, measured breathing normal?

When the flat door clicks closed behind them, John immediately lets out: "Jesus Christ." Steadying breath.  "Jesus.  I was just…not ready for that."  Sherlock cocks his head, not understanding. John works at not letting fast breathing edge into panic attack.

"You didn't have to go," Sherlock says quietly. "There was no reason to, I had Mycroft's people backing me up."

John almost doesn't say it, then he thinks--what the hell. Sherlock is irritatingly dense about human emotion.  "You hopeless prat, I meant I was not ready to almost lose you again." A little helpless sound huffs out.  It might have, in another context, become a laugh. "You couldn't have kept me home with handcuffs. You’ll be lucky to go to the loo by yourself for a while. I don't know about you, but I've had a tough. Goddamn. Week." John heads for tea without further comment, shoulders rigid, leaving Sherlock to digest this latest piece of sentiment.   

Once the kettle's on, John braces his hands against the worktop and breathes carefully.  Relieved is quickly shading into angry.

Sherlock's mind just won’t clear, he doesn’t know how to respond, so he goes by feel, leaning against the fridge and wrapping long fingers around John's wrist where it bends against the counter.  Scaphoid.  Lunate. Triquetrum. Pisiform. Trapezium. Trapezoid.  Capitate. Hamate. Exquisite balance and fine motor control. Unique in the animal kingdom.  Can wield sword or gun, or pen or violin.

"You know,” John says, conversationally, “I was a bloody Captain in the Army. The government, they trained me, and they tested me, and they gave me firearms and a team, and you know what I did every day, for fucking years?" His look is piercing. "I did everything I could to keep them alive in dangerous situations. And I don't think for a minute you hadn't figured that out. So why would you do that?” John’s eyes are on their hands on the worktop. “Why didn’t you trust me?”

Sherlock knows they’re not talking about today anymore. “They had to believe it. All our lives depended on you believing it, on your grief being believable." 

John breathes out, "Believable?” in an incredulous whisper. Sherlock rushes on.

"If there had been a breath of suggestion that I’d lived, you, and Mrs. Hudson, and Lestrade….Moriarty’s backup plans had backup plans. He really was a great impresario in a way.” There's a twist in his mouth.

“So. Let me translate from Sherlock-ese. You’re saying that you gambled with at least four people’s lives, without any of our input, in part because you were impressed with Moriarty's stage management.”

“Not gambling, John, planning. I planned…everything.”

“Who helped you?”

Sherlock is absolutely sure John’s not going to like this.

“Molly. And Stamford. Mostly Molly.”

John's face crinkles up even more. He knew, he should have, maybe he had known this, but he hadn’t really processed it.

“You ridiculed her, maneuvered her for your own…for, for years, and then you risked her life?”

“With her consent, John.”

“She would have…you manipulative bastard.”

John's head has turned slowly toward him again, and it’s not certain what he sees, but when Sherlock shifts uncomfortably, a sound between pain and anger boils up from John, nothing sweet in it, and he turns to fist his hands in Sherlock’s shirt, backing him up hard against the fridge.

His voice lowers to a growl. “All this grief, all this fucking pain, because you didn’t think I could act well enough to convince a bunch of fucking sociopaths--actual, real-life sociopaths, unlike you—that I was grieving?” 

John shakes him a little against the fridge. His breath is unsteady with the effort of not plowing his fists into Sherlock’s ridiculous cheekbones and soft stomach.

“I almost killed myself, you are a fucking wreck, Greg, Molly, Mrs. Hudson, even your robot of a brother…everybody who….” John’s throat closes up.

Transport.  Sherlock’s body is transport, but it's clearly going nowhere, his knees are jelly and there's nothing below them and nothing above them but a lonely ache. 

“Because you think I can’t act?” John growls again.

He shifts to brace his forearms against Sherlock’s clavicles, both hands holding Sherlock’s head still, eyes dark and dilated with actual anger now, untempered by his unbelievable fondness for the man under his elbows. His legs are braced and he's using every bit of his lower center of gravity to pin Sherlock hard with just those two points of contact.

The emotions in John's chest tighten up and come right out his mouth as he lays it on Sherlock's mouth, smooth and salty and hot, hot, hot. 

Sherlock's body has taken over, and is straining into John, even as his mind reels away in shock; the end result is that he's frozen.  

John kisses him without reserve, licking unashamedly at the sensitive corners of his mouth, nipping that maddening cupid’s bow just under its bend. John’s eyes are open and unapologetic, as Sherlock’s go wide and shocked, then half-lidded as his lips yield under John’s teeth, John’s tongue. A high little pleading sound escapes through the kiss, John can feel it in his arms on Sherlock’s chest. Sherlock’s hands knot in his jumper.

John pulls his mouth away.

“All right,” John says, voice still growly, eyes still angry, “Now you think: was I an amazing fucking actor while I lived with you for almost two years and didn’t do that, or am I an amazing actor now? I’ll tell you: it doesn’t matter. Because either way, you were wrong about me.”

He turns and walks away. 

“I’m going downstairs and use their gym, so I don’t break your fucking nose.” His eyes are still snapping with mad, and it seems far from impossible that he would throw a punch, but he pauses with his hand on the doorknob and says, not looking up, "I'll be back."

Then he slams the door, and Sherlock slides right down the fridge.


	18. Retreat and Charge

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> John kicks himself; Sherlock pushes the issue.

In the quiet room downstairs, nondescript and windowless, John moves his muscles and doesn't think too hard for probably fifteen minutes before giving up and lying back on the bench with his hands over his face, wrestling with this great squirming mass of feeling that's upsetting his stomach and his head and his heart. 

He’s done something possibly unforgivable, in a temper. He’s learned something can’t quite wish he didn’t know. It’s not the first time, on either count, and he suspects it won’t be the last. And John has to take the lead now, in this, of all things. Social is clearly his territory in their strange division of labor, but he's bunged it up rather spectacularly.  Snogging your flatmate as something between punishment and dare?  Really Watson, are you sixteen? 

He considers it, for a moment, in the nature of a test; like something from medical school, with multiple choices and only one right answer.  You have just kissed said flatmate, because you were mad, though you do, in fact, quite fancy him.  Do you, a) avoid the damn topic. b) suck it up, apologize, and then avoid the damn topic. c) back him up against a wall again--how much worse could it get? But—Sherlock had definitely responded, and option three is a strong contender, based on the feedback from below John's belly button.  Was Sherlock’s response just to John's superior snogging, high emotions in general, relief at not being slugged?  On second thought, no to the last; Sherlock had yet to show reticence about being slugged on any notable occasion. 

Why, why couldn't I have have used my fists like a normal person?  Like the hopeless prat so heartily deserves?

And worse than what to do with Sherlock, what will he do with himself? 

John presses the heels of his hands into stinging eyes because he can't believe how right it feels and how wrong, and can't forget the moment when Sherlock’s mouth yielded and John’s eyes opened to see Sherlock’s glittering with want.

****

When John returns, Sherlock is ready. He has been thinking, very hard, and he knows he can figure out John’s riddle, if only he can observe.

It’s been 63 minutes. John comes through the door and toes off his shoes. There is no new information in the way John pushes up his shirtsleeves or startles when he sees Sherlock still sitting at the base of the fridge. Of course there isn't.

He uncurls and advances on John, studying him with a searchlight intensity. “Oh, no.” John’s arm straightens, palm out. “No. No experiments.”

“You’re experimenting on me.”

“I was making a point. And the point, if you will remember, is that you. Were wrong. I can act. I can also cook. And kill people with my bare hands. Generally, I try very hard not to do any of that. Which, I admit, causes some awkwardness from time to time. But it doesn’t make me incapable, and it doesn’t give you the right to ruin years of my life.” His voice has risen again, against his will. “Right then.” 

John blows out a breath, which mostly allows Sherlock to notice that his tee shirt is tight, and his ribcage is wide for his height, and his abdomen doesn’t really taper below it. The whole assembly looks solid and he irrationally wants to feel where the carapace of ribs give way to the supple muscle of the belly. 

“Look, I’m sorry. That was over the line. I was angry, and I'm still angry, but that’s no excuse. I'm sorry; I hope you can…delete the whole thing.” John knows he won’t be able to. 

He heads for his room. If Sherlock's eyes linger on the rear view, he reasons John has only himself to blame.

****

It’s a little after two when John gets up to pee. A lamp is still on in the living room and he pokes his head in. “Still up?” The man hasn’t had four hours of sleep in a row since he returned. Was it only three days ago? 

Sherlock turns, owl-like. “Mmm.” He falls silent till John stirs to turn back toward his room. “I’ve concluded that either you’re a very good actor indeed, or this is an area where my skills are….” His face crinkles with disgust, “less than adequate.”

A smile surfaces in John’s eyes, but his face doesn’t move. “Can I get that in writing?” 

Sherlock huffs. His hands are clenched together, tense.

“Sherlock,” John’s voice gentles as he settles into the couch, leaning his head back, putting his feet up and closing his eyes. “It’s all right. It’s….all fine. From my end, anyway.” He has to say it out loud to realize it’s true. He could be happy again, having this. Three a.m. company. Mad dashes through London, and the flash of inspiration, and the coziness of post-case takeout. And if he needs something else, he suspects he can still patch it up with Lily, hit the clubs, or otherwise work something out. If it’s not a perfect world, it’s still a damn good life, and more than he thought he’d have.

Sherlock moves to sit beside him on the couch, right knee tucked up against his chest while the left extends in a long line to the coffee table, where his bare foot joins John's. They are still for a moment, then Sherlock runs his toes, very softly, against John's arch.  It feels electric, from John's exposed chin all the way to the cool spot where the smooth top of Sherlock's foot rests against the satiny skin of John's arch. 

John turns his head very slowly, eyes no longer sleepy, but sharp on the other man's face. Sherlock looks absolutely blank, as neutral and incurious as an animal in the wild. John's seen the mask many times. But then Sherlock’s foot moves again, just a little, just enough that it must be deliberate, and John feels it lengthening the line of his body, his whole self piloted by two square centimeters he usually walks on.  

"Are we--doing this?"

It's rhetorical, it must be. I'm not leaving. Sherlock's in a holding pattern, ground down, not hoping, or dreading, not remembering, just waiting, all his cells pausing their relentless march, until even his blood slows, and he looks, and looks, and looks, at the bags under John's eyes and the shading of stubble under his chin and the strange crenellations of his pinna and the shine of very short blonde-brown-grey hairs at his temple and the tiny scar at the end of his right brow, and blissfully, he doesn't know what any of it means. It’s a beautiful, multifaceted, possibly unsolveable mystery, like unified physics. 

“I’m not leaving,” Sherlock says. 

And then John's mouth is on his mouth, and slow becomes fast, fast, fast, information rushing at him like a tidal wave of detail, but not through his vision, which has gone blissfully grey. A small crust of skin on John's lower lip softens, John's upper foot presses over the top of his arch while the lower presses up from underneath, and the firm, gentle grip of John's hand curls on his bicep, where he can feel the negative space under each finger joint, proximal, middle, distal phalanges, the arch under metacarpals where the skin bends into a curve of lifeline. His skin tells him the way John's thumb and fingers (dominant hand) frame his ear, the fingers threaded into his hair again, moving lazily. John must be a little obsessed with his hair, he thinks.  

It's only fair, because he is obsessed with all of John. He wants to watch the way his knees work and see his tattoo and his scars and lick the tantalizing stubble of hair that runs up the back of his neck and taste and smell and see and hear and touch everything about him, and how it’s all steady and giving without giving in. This is not a war for John, it's a coup d'etat. He's already won; the rest is logistics.

John’s breathing a little funny. “What happened to ‘married to my work’?” 

Sherlock says, shaky and husky, “Messy divorce.”

John smiles uncertainly but puts his hands solidly and deliberately on Sherlock, rounded around the point of his shoulder, cupped at the base of his neck. Where his hands rest, he presses, just a little, tightening his grip. He can feel the man under his hands relax minutely. Perfect. It’s…perfect. And unexpected. He watches, the subtle in and out of Sherlock’s breath, the tiny movements of his eyes, memorizing everything. Wherever this goes from here, he wants this memory. For once, a memory palace doesn’t seem like a horribly pretentious idea.

He very gently, very slowly rubs his lips across Sherlock’s. It feels like a lit sparkler on Sherlock’s skin. 

“I have to ask.” John’s still a whisper away, the words landing in soft breath on his skin. “Have you ever done this before?” Sherlock tenses under his hands. “Don’t. I want to know, I want to know everything.” This against Sherlock’s temple; it sends hairs standing up all along the left side of his head.

“Perhaps you should test your observational skills, John.” It comes out petulant. Good. “What do you think? I know what Mycroft thinks. I know what Irene thinks. What do you think, John?”

“I’m not talking about mechanics, Sherlock.” John’s hands are framing his face now, looking right at him. It’s the same way John looks down the barrel of a gun, the same way he looks when he stretches his strides to stay at Sherlock’s side. Sherlock’s stunned, a bit, both at John and his own response. Things he didn’t know he wanted open up in front of him. Impossibly, all he can think is closer. He twists his whole body to lean further in to John, his lips finally, finally, landing on John’s again. 

John’s careful, so careful. He’s gentle. When he whispers, “God, Sherlock,” it’s full of restraint. 

Sherlock can’t make words to answer—his central nervous system has shut down for maintenance, and all he gets is little bursts of sensation from all over his body, and little inputs of sound, John breathing, himself breathing, someone whimpering, and he feels like he’s going to fly apart, pieces spinning off into the darkness. So when John’s hands tighten on him, the pressure is satisfying, grounding. He wants more, and he knows John will give it to him, so he lets his body relax into the touch completely, slumping backward awkwardly, John tensing to twist and lower him.

The sudden yielding, so unlike Sherlock, sends a hot rush through John from head to foot. Suddenly he can’t be careful, and before the haze clears, he’s got Sherlock well-pinned, half-under him on the couch, his right hand laced with Sherlock’s left just above their heads, and his mouth worrying Sherlock’s jaw line. He works down under his ear till he hits a spot that makes Sherlock’s head whip to the side and his spine arch up to press his neck and his, god, the point of his clavicle into inviting relief. John runs the tip of his tongue up that column of neck to suck at that spot below his ear again, and Sherlock makes a noise, nearly a whine rumbling up through his chest, his eyes squeezed shut and his body entirely on autopilot. His hips move restlessly.

“Fuck.” John’s breathing hard. He slides a hand in to brace against Sherlock’s lower back. The rhythmic roll of muscle under his hand makes his throat catch. “Fuck, Sherlock.” He almost-smiles and seals his mouth on Sherlock’s again, helplessly hungry. 

They rock together, desperate. All that uncomfortable sharp-edged emotion in John is being met and answered by Sherlock’s body. Sherlock’s vocalizations sound like pain, not pleasure, and there are tears on his face that John can’t see from where he’s got his face pressed to Sherlock’s neck. Sherlock’s absolutely out of his head, weightless and anchored only by the hot heavy pressure of John all around him. 

John loses even the ability to vaguely marvel at the situation when Sherlock responds to John’s teeth on his shoulder by bucking up with a great exhale and going rigid. It’s been a while, but John’s pretty sure Sherlock has just come in his pants, almost untouched. It raises a great wave of tenderness in John as they still, John’s face nudging in against Sherlock’s, ignoring the demands of his own body in favor of comforting. He feels the damp and winds an arm around Sherlock’s shoulders to pull him closer yet, shifting them onto their sides a bit so he can get a good look at Sherlock.

It’s a picture like he’s never seen. Sweat and tears and snot, all raw and out there, pupils blown and face shocked. Sherlock quickly ducks his head against John’s shoulder, and John begins running his free hand from nape to coccyx, coccyx to nape, soothing. He makes the circuit perhaps five times before Sherlock’s solidly asleep, almost unconscious. John lays awake, breathing in and out with his lips against Sherlock’s temple.


	19. The Morning After

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> John and Sherlock have The Talk. Or rather, John has the talk.

John's amazed when he wakes in the morning to find Sherlock still warm and heavy in his arms.  His back demands that he extract himself from the warm tangle immediately, so he carefully shifts. He needn’t have worried; Sherlock seems nearly comatose, doubtless in catchup mode from god knows how much sleep deprivation.

Sherlock’s state is a welcome reprieve; John has some thinking to do.

***

When Sherlock slowly surfaces into consciousness, it’s not thoughts that greet him first, as they usually do, but a headache and a raging thirst and the insistent need to piss. These are followed by a hot wave of shame, salted with a healthy dose of anger at himself for his lack of control. Clearly, the bus has been driving itself. 

He doesn’t sense John nearby, so he slowly turns to scan the area. It would appear John is in his bedroom with the door closed. Sherlock slinks off to the loo as silently as he can manage, taking care of his needs (messy, and uncomfortable; the evidence of his lapse in judgement has dried into an unpleasant crust) and gulping down a glass of water before staring at himself in the mirror, observing like a stranger the signs of last night’s activities. 

He can’t help but wonder if John, behind his closed door, is taking care of his own needs, since Sherlock had done nothing to help him. The thought prompts a violent shake of the head. He pointedly ignores his body's response and devotes himself entirely to the minutiae of personal hygiene.

***

By the time he surfaces for real, John’s fixing another meal, eggs again, by the smell, and nearly done. Sherlock follows the scent to creep into the kitchen and wind himself into one of the kitchen chairs. 

"Tea?" John sounds absolutely normal.  And in fact, strangely, he is. He's so damn glad to have Sherlock back, just knowing he’s there seems strangely blessed. He's not exactly happy with himself for disturbing Sherlock's equilibrium--their equilibrium--before they've even gotten it back, but he can't wish it hadn't happened.  

Sherlock narrows his eyes; John, to his frustration, produces tea and toast for Sherlock without further comment, then proceeds to tuck in to his own meal. Sherlock's long fingers turn his tea cup, thirty degrees at a time. He should absolutely be thinking about Moran and Banker and the man John recognized on the street, but John's forearms are shifting below the pushed up sleeves of his jumper, and it’s eating more of Sherlock’s bandwidth than is entirely logical. 

Sherlock understands that, in the general way of things, this sort of event (“last night”) is usually followed by something more, or something less (“the morning after”).  

Not this . . . elaborate pause that John seems to be doing.

"All right?"  John stops with a forkful of eggs halfway to his mouth. He's returning the stare, and Sherlock's uncomfortable, as if John might know he was considering the exact distances and angles at which they're apart, feet and knees and hips and shoulders and elbows and hands and mouths. 

He wants to hide his skin's hunger, so Sherlock eats half of the toast in one large bite, and washes it down with the better part of his cup of tea.  It's not quite eloquent, but it is unmistakably a response.

John's still looking.

Sherlock stares back and tries not to think of the warm comforting exciting weight of him or his blunt fingertips on the smooth skin behind Sherlock’s ears.  

"Ah, I think I'm going to take that as a 'yes' until informed otherwise." John goes back to eating.  Sherlock plucks a piece of bacon off John's plate and puts both bare heels on the chair seat while he nibbles it, and stares, with growing resentment, at John’s placid face. 

He stares and eats his bacon, and stares and eats the rest of his toast, stares and drinks and the rest of his tea, which John refills.

"If there's something you--something you want to know, you might try, ah, asking.  Instead of trying to deduce it out of me with your steely gaze, or whatever's going on at the mo."  John looks steadily at him for a moment, then rises and tucks the dish towel into his waistband, and that's absolutely the last straw.  Sherlock flounces out of the room to toss himself on the sofa, back to the room.  Perhaps all this will go away, if he ignores it hard enough. 

He doesn't see John smile fondly as he does the washing up.

****

He does, however, sense John padding over to sit in the chair nearest his head. Sherlock's skin is telling him all kinds of things it doesn't usually mention, as if his powers of observation have been translated somehow from vision to touch.

"Sherlock."  Saying it out loud, just because he can.  Sherlock flops over onto his back.

"You're 39 years old, you spent a good portion of your young adulthood isolated in groups of other young males in stressful situations.  Chances are very good that this is not your first involvement with a male. However, you're behaving as if last night never happened, which leads---"

"I'm behaving,”  John's quiet but firm. "like someone who's waiting for a welcome, or a brush-off."

"Am I right?"

"That I've done this with a man before?  Yes and no. That I'm ignoring it?  No. And--whatever I've done before, this is different. You're different.  We're different." He's not moving at all. He's said to himself, a thousand times, that getting through this together is the important thing. It feels surprisingly true.

Sherlock rolls to sitting, leaning his forearms on his knees. "John."  He’s his old, derisive self for a moment. "Individual behavior is deeply influenced by past experience, and..."

“God, you don’t…you git, just…”  John rises.  His body has pulled into a tight line along his spine. "There's no one else like you, in my life, in the world, really, and our whole--" he makes a vague gesture, "--situation is so bizarre as to be un-repeatable.”  He makes the mistake of pausing for breath, and is treated to the beginnings of Sherlock protesting that any situation can be repeated, and in all likelihood would be, just through probability.  “For christ’s sake, Sherlock, there is absolutely no way to pretend this is science. I just....I don’t know how you…feel, I don’t….If we're doing this, I need it to be a--a relationship. I'm not a fuck-buddy, I'm not an experiment, and in the normal sense, I'm not even your friend. I've never done for any friend what I've done for you, I've never wanted to." He stands up. "Look, you need to think about this. It's, I'm so glad you're back, but that's not the only thing for me, I've always felt this way. But I don't know about you." You're babbling, Watson. “Just don’t…I need to know what you want.  What you actually want, not what you think you should want, or what suits your image.  I'm not leaving.  But I need to...It's not...I'm sorry, but it's not enough for you to sort of, shift closer, when we're both just...exhausted and, and freaked out. I need to hear yes, it's not enough that it's not no. I need to know the giant brain agrees.” With your body. Which is so, so interested. 

Even now, when John’s paying attention to other things, important, crucial things, he can see the minute disturbances in Sherlock's body language, drawing toward him like a magnet. It feels like he could play Sherlock like a puppet, moving his own body to move Sherlock's. Suddenly his mind's eye is full of a thousand gestures, a thousand times Sherlock's ignored etiquette and personal space and common sense and touched John. Maybe Sherlock's body has always agreed and his mind is working on catching up.

Sherlock's looking up at him, all the strange, pale planes of his face lit golden from the morning sun, his long eyes wide and pale and his mouth slack, disordered and dismayed. It's not a happy picture, exactly, but it's real, in a way that the blank face Sherlock presents to the world never is.

Sherlock's head drops into his hands, hair barely long enough to hide those expressive fingers as he makes a frustrated sound.  He can't imagine this turning out well, but there's only one answer he can give.  He's given it over and over since he met John. How many more times before John believes him?  Before he understands the content of the message?

His body settles, ready for a shift into a new era. He's very still. He breathes, for so long he can hear John move. 

"All right then." It's gentle, quiet. John's hand drops to his shoulder, squeezes, then his footsteps pad out of the room. 

John's spine is holding him up, and he reminds himself that from Sherlock, on any occasion, a "no" is much more likely than a "yes", and that the important thing is to have him back. He tries to think of something to do, and winds up first shaving, then brushing his teeth.  He's rinsing out the last of the toothpaste when his friend comes up the hall.  John dredges up something he hopes is a reassuring smile.

"Have you heard from..."  He stops talking as Sherlock keeps walking, right into his space. "Ah, I—“

The stare coming down at him is not a bit short of fierce.

"Yes." He hisses it. It feels to Sherlock like peeling his skin off, like John has him laid on an autopsy table, spread like a butterfly, all his complex folds and secret spaces open to the cold air. John can see the pulse fluttering at Sherlock's neck, and feel his own begin to beat in his temple. Sherlock slides himself between John and the basin, invading his space but not touching, and sinks down on its edge to be more of a height with John. He grips the counter at either side of his hips and there's something in his face that’s frightfully like that day on the ledge.

There's a pause. John's not sure what he'll run into, but that's never stopped him before. He leans forward and lays his mouth on Sherlock's, gently, once, twice, eyes straight ahead.

Sherlock reflects that he is lucky he leaned on the sink, because his treacherous knees don't feel too solid. He's aware John is gazing at him, and that it means something, but it's distant, like the hum of engine noise. 

Because John's face is arranged in a way he's never seen. It’s an uncomfortable mix of admiration, which he has seen, possessiveness, which, oddly, he has also seen, and desire in equal measures. John’s not hiding it anymore, his eyes are dark with it, and when he slides his mouth against Sherlock's the third time, they are both dizzy, drunk on endorphins. 

John’s hands are pressing at Sherlock’s waist, cupping his hip bone, running up his back, running down his neck; Sherlock’s skin runs hot and cold, hot and cold. 

"Ah, relationship, then?" The old John Watson is back, temporarily, giving him a lopsided smile that's awkward and endearing.

“John, this is…really not my area.”

“But it’s something you’ve just told me you want.”

Sherlock looks to the side, his face tight.

“I also want a Guarneri.” Snide. John’s glad to hear it; he’s not generally sure of his footing, just now, but snide, that he knows how to deal with. “I don’t understand sentiment, nor have I found it to be useful.”

They’re not touching anymore, but are standing in each other’s space, John bracketed between Sherlock’s legs.

“Ah, useful? Your sentiments, or others’?”

“Both. Mostly it seems to end in murder.” John just smiles. “I realize, obviously, that is not true in the general population, but I don’t believe either of us belongs in the general population.”

“Are you saying you’re more likely to murder me if we’re involved?” He’s chuckling, because just like every other conversation with Sherlock, this one is a little mental. And, God, he’s missed the twisted tracks of this man’s mind.

“Well, I’d kill you myself before I’d let Moriarty lay hands on you again.” It’s matter-of-fact.

John’s a bit gobsmacked, but he tries to be gentle. It’s kind of a sweet thought, considered in just the right light.

“Ah, not good, Sherlock.”

“This will never work.” Sherlock tosses up his hands and scoots out from behind John’s legs. He feels a bit more like himself now that they’re arguing, which is itself a sad comment on their relationship.

“Sherlock.” It’s fond, and a little amused again. “First off, Moriarty’s dead, is he not? So it’s…it might be true, but it’s irrelevant. Secondly, don’t you think the mark of a smart person is knowing how to use their resources? Don’t you think you’ve already done that with me? You’re so, so brilliant at understanding what’s happened, and even predicting future behavior. But I can teach you something here. I have something to offer.”

Sherlock’s looking at him again, his hand still on the doorknob, looking like he’s waging some internal war.

“We’ve never had trouble being friends, have we? What makes you think this is different?” Sherlock shifts, and it feels like a concession. “If you want this, you can have it. If you don’t, you can walk away.”

Sherlock’s fairly sure that he cannot, in fact, walk away. His body is magnetized to John, refusing to relax unless they are in contact. He takes one pointed step back toward the sink, and John reaches out to tuck him back in, snug between the hard edge of the vanity and the rock of John Watson.

They just look at each other for a moment. John feels, rather than sees, Sherlock’s hands tensed around the vanity’s edge. This is going to be unlike any other relationship he’s had (“Obviously”—he can hear the echo of the other man’s baritone). Sherlock needs a logical progression, he suspects, toward something he’s experimented with very little.

John leans in, dropping a kiss just at the place where Sherlock’s ear joins his jaw. Then he raises his mouth just a bit and whispers, “You can touch me any way you want.” This gets a satisfying little shiver from Sherlock. John bracelets his hands gently around Sherlock’s wrists and looks him right in the eye. “I’ll say stop if it makes me uncomfortable, and I expect you to do the same.” Hands still very gentle, he lifts Sherlock’s wrists till his hands lay on John’s waist. “If you’ll agree to that,” John’s smiling again, and watching the precise way his skin folds at the corners of his mouth and eyes makes something strange happen in Sherlock’s stomach. "I really want to take you to bed." When John’s gaze comes up, it's dark again, and the smile is fading. 

Sherlock says, “Yes.”

****

When the bedroom door clicks shut behind them, Sherlock starts a little. The motion sharpens John’s gaze on him. There is tension in the lines of his shoulders and jaw, subtle signals John’s had to learn to read in their years together. His expression is carefully blank, but to John it reads as wary and unsure. It’s a little heartbreaking, because nothing in John is unsure about what he wants here. Sherlock’s responded well so far to directness in this area, so he tries:

“Sit down.” 

It’s deliberately vague. Bed or chair?

Sherlock chooses the bed and complies without comment. So far, so good.

John grabs the desk chair with one hand and plunks it down in front of Sherlock, whose eyes flick with confusion.

John leans down and picks up Sherlock’s foot, propping it on his knee and beginning to work the laces. He strips off the shoe, then the sock, revealing a long pale foot. He works by feel, keeping his eyes on Sherlock’s face, which is watching his own foot appear like it’s a foreign object.

John runs his thumb down the arch, firm and warm, getting a little gasp from Sherlock. He switches to feather-light pressure, on the top of the foot, then the bottom, then the top again, then digs in to the arch, rubs around the ankle joint, shifts the heel padding gently. It’s beginning to be apparent he’s in no hurry, and Sherlock’s face is beginning to show both discomfort and pique.

“I thought we were consummating something here, not playing footsie.” Sherlock manages a ghost of his usual vinegar. He snatches his foot back and glares. John smiles and picks up the other.

He pulls off the left shoe and sock and runs both hands luxuriously over this foot. This time Sherlock pulls it back immediately. What had Sherlock’s life been like that he was completely unsettled by a little footrub?

“Consummating, huh?” John smiles. Sherlock must be a little alarmed by sex after all. Then again, it’s hard to imagine him saying “fuck” or even “make love”, when some more clinical term was applicable.

John leans forward, rubbing his lips just at the corner of Sherlock’s mouth. Kissing, that had been going well. He slides his mouth against the warm bend of Sherlock’s lips, slow but intense. John runs his tongue just at the cupid’s bow, at the corner, along the seam, then nibbles a little at each of Sherlock’s lips. Sherlock’s hands have found their way to fist in his shirt. John’s perched on the edge of the chair, leaning in to the warm body in front of him. 

Sherlock’s mobile buzzes. He fishes it out and leaves the room without a backward glance, tapping away, bare feet slapping on the hard floor.


	20. Disappearance and Distraction

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sherlock and John sit out another mystery.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks so much to everyone who's reading, and leaving comments and kudos. It's just--so awesome to get feedback!

John’s still sitting in the chair, staring after Sherlock, a full minute later. “Wow.” He mouths, and swipes a hand across his eyes.

“Okay, so, for future reference,” he says as he pads into the living room, “Checking phones while snogging? Not good.”

Sherlock hums, and lobs the phone to John. 

Mycroft missing ~10 am. Tracker active.  
-Anthea

John’s eyes widen and meet Sherlock's as he lobs it back.  

“Mycroft? My god, do you think it’s them? Banker’s men? What do we do?"

"We can't theorize until we have data.  We wait."

Sherlock presses his fingertips together and closes his eyes, but truthfully, it's mostly to block John out, not because he's thinking. John's nearness, approximately four feet away, on the corner of the couch, is…distracting. He has on the soft brown jumper, and it makes his hair look darker at the roots and lighter at the tips, like a sable. Sherlock knows, because he brushed his arm, accidentally-on-purpose, the jumper is thin and soft, with the slight roughness that says wool, not cashmere, shetland, not merino. John smelled, earlier, when he was close, when they were close, like shaving soap and warm wool and like John. Sherlock wants to smell him again, to bury his face in the crook of his neck and memorize the feeling of John’s collarbone under his mouth and his jaw at Sherlock’s temple. Sherlock's pressing on his eyeballs again as he tries for blank, for a beginner’s mind. Discomfort helps. 

John's up and pacing now.  That helps too.

"Hello, I'm calling for Harriet Watson?  I'm her brother."  Pause. "Right. Could you just…check? I got a strange message, and I just want to make sure she's all right. Yes, I'll wait."

The sinking feeling in John’s gut says that the whole elaborate, Moriarty-like opera on the square has been preparation for this. Still, this is the process. Check. Batten down the hatches.

It's fifteen minutes of pacing before Harry is accounted for and John can breathe a sigh of relief. As siblings, both Harry and Mycroft have their faults. John's had his heart broken by one and his trust betrayed by both, but he and Sherlock are hardly perfect brothers either, he thinks, studying for a moment the still figure in the chair, pushing white knuckles into his eye sockets. 

Sherlock’s behaving even more strangely than usual, and John can guess at the origin of that as well. He's entered a minefield, touching this man, and though he's not particularly risk-averse, he is still aware of the distinct possibility of explosion with every step. 

Finally he sits on the coffee table in front of Sherlock, and rests a hand lightly against each of his forearms.  Sherlock doesn't move.

“Harry’s ok, Sherlock. Just. Not Mycroft.”

Still nothing.

Under his eyes, which are under his fingertips, Sherlock's thinking about the warm circles of John's hands on his forearms, and how he's going to find his brother with John in the room.

"Are you in there?" John jostles him a bit, but not like he's serious. Sherlock doesn't want to break John's hold, so he links his arms loosely around his knees. So much data is rushing in again through his skin, the weave of the chair under his toes and the pull of the seams on his trousers and the tag behind his neck and the first hint of curl resting at his hairline.

Sherlock slides his feet to the floor and leans around John for his phone, breathing deep through his nose as he does.  He sends a quick text to Anthea, and when he looks up, John's smirking at him.

"Were you sme...never mind."  John hooks a hand behind each of his knees and pulls, hard, sliding the slender man to the front of the chair, letting the width of his thighs spread Sherlock’s. Those surprised, wary eyes finally meet his again, dilating already. Their eyes lock for an instant, then John’s sliding his mouth against Sherlock’s, hot and a little rough. He rasps teeth against Sherlock’s bottom lip and it surprises a gasp out of him. A nip in the same spot is rewarded with a sound that’s too hard-edged to be a moan and higher than any Sherlock’s ever made in his presence. He slots his hand into Sherlock’s open shirt-collar, thumb dragging a path from suprasternal notch out along his clavicle, sweeping the shirt with him.

When he pulls back, Sherlock looks vague, his mouth pink and wet and open a little as he licks his lips, tasting John, tasting them together. John leans up to just nudge Sherlock’s cheek with his smooth, just-shaved jaw, getting his mouth right next to the sensitive whorls of his ear.

“If you…want something…you can ask, you know.” Sherlock’s breath hitches, and a little tremor runs through him from head to foot. Every hair on his body is standing on end.

John leans back and studies him. “Or. You know. You’re a genius, I’m sure you can find some way to let me know.”

****

There's a crisp tap at the door, and Sherlock says, “Come,” easily composed after many years of practice with Mycroft's unwanted intrusions. John's ears are pink, but he's retreated to the couch, phone and laptop at the ready. Sherlock can’t quite understand how John can be so confident, so—masterful is the best word he can muster—one minute and blushing like a schoolgirl the next.

Anthea comes in, balanced on an improbable pair of shocking-pink Lanvin heels. Sherlock's amazed she would choose them, with her boring business-wear wardrobe, and John's frankly amazed she can balance on them. She shoves a thumb drive at John.

“Preliminary reports, CCTV and security video on the thumb drive. If we can get his tracker pinpointed, we won’t need that, of course, though it may still be of use if, as I suspect, this is more related to your work than his.” 

Sherlock flips the drive in his hands, staring at her with his calculation-face.

“Thank you.” John says.

“He relies too heavily on his anonymity. He doesn’t like surveillance.” Her voice has the faintest trace of disgust. 

Sherlock snorts at the irony. "Was it you that missed him?” There's a barely-perceptible pause before she answers.

“Yes. I was expecting him in the office around 10:00, and when I investigated, I discovered he’d gone. His tracker came active at 10:12, and our people have been formulating a plan. We have no evidence indicating whether this incident is in fact related to your work rather than his. Ours.” John glances over, but Sherlock's steepling his fingers and staring into the middle distance. "I'll leave you to it.  You know how to contact me." She tilts her head at John and presses her lips together. "And you know when and why to contact me."

When she turns to leave John rises.  "Perhaps you should give me your number as well, just in case."

"Is this an elaborate flirt?" She is clearly teasing him.

"Ah, no." John, much to his dismay, flushes again. Sherlock looks intrigued. 

“Also, officially, you don't know any of this. I was directed only to give you the information that Mycroft was missing.” She smiles a little grimly. “The wheels of bureaucracy turn slowly."

"I see. But, they’re turning?” John says.

"I'm working on it.”

She clicks out and down the stairs, the door closing behind her.

***  
Sherlock has barely gotten the files transferred off the drive when another text comes in. He snatches up the laptop to run the coordinates Anthea’s forwarded, and stares for a moment at the map, his face going stony.  He's on the phone in an instant, slamming the door to his bedroom behind him.

"Apparently, I need a favor."  It grates at him.

"I thought you might, when I saw the package come in this morning.” Irene's sweet contralto replies.

“Subtly, if you please.  Because you can't be caught, can you?"

"Well, it would be rather a waste after all the trouble you went to, darling."

Sherlock glares at the wall, unbelievably annoyed, and yet not disagreeing.  He wonders briefly if she has mind control powers in addition to her significant mental faculties and bodily attractions.

"You are aware you'll have to leave?"

"Oh, intimately."  Her laugh says lover, and he fervently hopes it's for cover, and not because she actually thinks he might…surely not.

“And soon."  He doubts very much that any of them, except Irene, realize who Mycroft is, and exactly why it was a very, very bad idea to kidnap the man. She can either save Mycroft or get him killed when Mycroft’s team goes barging in, as they undoubtedly will shortly.

She hangs up, and Sherlock calls Anthea.

***

After only a few minutes of his and John’s usual pacing/ignoring pacing routine, Sherlock's phone rings. 

"Mr. Holmes, you're a hard man to contact." Sherlock’s gone still, which brings John instantly on alert. He passes over his phone so Sherlock can text Anthea if need be.

"How did you get this number?" 

“Log in to Skype, Mr. Holmes. There are things I’d like you to see.”

A juvenile screen name pops up just after Sherlock logs in, requesting a skype; he accepts, and a bare room flicks into view, the centerpiece of which is an ominous x-shaped black frame, to which is bound one Mycroft Holmes, nude and bearing an expression which is the mean of truculent and blank.

John’s seen the expression before; sadly, he’s never seen the resemblance between the two brothers so strongly. Some humorous and disengaged portion of his mind notes that despite Sherlock’s constant needling, Mycroft’s actually a perfectly healthy weight, and really not in bad shape, especially considering that his pursuits tend to the intellectual.

Sherlock continues to talk on the phone.

“This seems a good place to start the negotiation.” The voice is off screen, more than likely remote, rather than onsite, but at least two people are in the room on the video. One is partially visible on camera. “Let’s talk about your options, and my options. I’m afraid your brother has no options at this time. Really, Mycroft? Sherlock? Did your parents have some sort of naming vendetta?” The little pause for mad contemplation is enough like Moriarty that John shudders a little. “So. Let’s discuss your options.”

John settles his hand on Sherlock’s ankle where it’s crossed over his knee, behind the laptop.

Sherlock interrupts, “you have made two mistakes in this matter. You assumed I’d care, and you assumed Mycroft needs my help.” 

Mycroft apparently understands the signal; the Holmeses have nothing if not dramatic flair. John watches, impressed, as he plows into the guard to his right. Obviously Mycroft wasn’t tied well, John thinks, and it’s equally obvious he’s had some training. Sherlock’s eyes flick to John’s, understanding the confusion.

“Wait till he goes for the brolly.” Sherlock says under his breath. His eyes crinkle at the sides.

Mycroft does just that, whirling to push one man back while he does something to the wrist of the third that brings him to his knees just before the first black-clad response team barrels through the door.

“Don’t mess with the Holmes boys, eh?” John chuckles.

Sherlock turns to stare owlishly at him. “You mess with me.”

“Well then,” John says, looking at him in a way that makes his neck hot, “You let me, don’t you?” 

Sherlock looks determinedly at the screen, which is quickly filled with Mycroft’s face. “You may expect me for tea, Sherlock.” The window goes blank.

***

“So you had something to do with him getting loose, eh?” John tilts his head.

Something tightens in the vicinity of Sherlock’s kidneys. “Irene.” Is all he says.

“Oh.” John sits back. “So. She was, what, um….”

“Hosting the party. For an apparently substantial fee. She didn’t realize we were. Involved. Until Mycroft showed up.” Sherlock can’t think of anything he’d like to talk over less, so he changes the direction of the conversation. “And now, you can tell me, because I haven’t forgotten, despite your…distraction techniques, all about how you recognized the man on the street.”

“Distraction? That what the kids are calling it now?” John smirks and crosses his feet on the coffee table again. There’s a long pause. “He’s someone I knew in the service, slightly. He had a reputation.” 

“Mmm. Then why didn’t you recognize him in the picture with Moran?” His eyes slice to John’s. “Oh. You did.” He shoves out of his chair with both hands, pacing away. 

“I was hoping, really hoping, it wouldn’t become an issue.”

“You do a lot of talk about trust, but don’t do a lot of practice, I see.” 

“That’s unfair, Sherlock, really. This is a case of—wishful thinking, more than anything.” John fetches the folder and spreads it out. “I didn’t know much about him. I just saw the . . . Results a few times. I really can’t talk about it, Sherlock, without betraying someone else’s trust. His name is James Kelley. He’s half-Irish, all-mean. I’m not sure what else I can tell you.”

“What did he do, what was his job in the Army?”

“Um, parachuter, airborne.”

“So, adrenalin addict. Personal habits? Friends? Enemies? Everything you can remember.”

“Ah, it’s been a while, but…he was a smoker, always pushed regulations in his personal appearance, very into the bare-knuckle bouts and that kind of thing—blood sport, I guess.”

Sherlock pauses, tilting his head to look at John with a calculating eye.  "Rapist or torturer?"

John starts. Sherlock makes a dismissive gesture as he starts to protest.

"Please.  I don't know Kelley, but I know you. So which is it?"

Sherlock finds his reptilian brain watching the shift of muscle as John clenches his jaw. John looks at him for a moment, before nodding, "Both, actually. And he has a type." And you’re it.

"Why weren't you able to . . . " he trails off when John tents his hands over his face. Sherlock’s still not necessarily tuned in to these things when on the scent of a solution, but he’s clearly strayed into unpleasant territory. He can neither back up nor go forward, so he just stops.

John’s quiet for perhaps two minutes before he finally says, “Not being able to do something about him is one of the worst things that happened to me on deployment. I lost patients, I lost mates, and I saw some things I wish I hadn’t, but…he was supposed to be on our side.”

John’s not looking at him. 

Sherlock understands that in the normal way of things, this would be a moment for comfort. He’s watched enough miserable television, including a week-long stint in a hotel room in Mexico City which seemed to include a 24/7 soap opera channel, he knows how this scene should go. But there’s 12 feet of space between them, and John’s normally open face is closed like a prison door. He’s still wrestling with his indecision when John looks up.

There’s something raw and willing on Sherlock’s face, and when John speaks it’s rough, uncomfortable.

“Come here.”

Sherlock does.

He kneels in front of the chair, hands lightly on John’s knees. It’s as close as he can get. He can’t read John’s face, but when he leans down to press his cheek against Sherlock’s, it’s warm and just barely scratchy, exciting and comforting. Shouldn’t the comfort go the other way?

But it does. John feels something settle inside when he cups a hand behind Sherlock’s head, and takes in his calm, open expression. 

“Lay down with me?”


	21. Sinking

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sherlock lets John put himself together, and take Sherlock apart.

“Lay down with me?” 

John’s voice comes out breathy. He’s a mess; he may not be able, or willing, to verbalize what he’s feeling, but it’s unequivocally snarled up with love and lust for the man who is kneeling—kneeling—in front of him, looking up with wide willing eyes and cataloguing every blessed breath.

For answer, Sherlock unfolds his long legs and walks away. 

John follows. He closes the door behind them, dark and secret. 

Sherlock’s shucked his jacket and settled on the edge of the bed. When John advances Sherlock scoots back awkwardly. His eyes are practically devouring John now, wide and dark. It’s exactly what John wanted to see.

John crawls over him, slowly, and stops, leaning forward off his knees. He gives himself a minute to just feel the want that’s opened up in him, vast and lonely. He’s suddenly reminded of his SCUBA training, of that first moment of letting go of the boat, and feeling the weights draw him down, ears muffled, limbs sluggish, through that quiet thick blue-green world, down, down, down. 

He’s moving underwater-slow, kissing Sherlock’s mouth again, his temple, those ridiculous cheekbones, ghosting lips over Sherlock’s ear, down his neck. John’s breathing has gone deep when he raises his head and sees Sherlock, god, the look on his face is unbelievable, edgy and needy. 

Sherlock’s hand raises, hesitant, then falls. John’s still on his knees and one hand, the other buried in Sherlock’s hair, rubbing compulsively at the silky waves. “Any way you want,” he whispers, desperate. “Anything you want.” He buries his hand just behind Sherlock’s ear and uses it to turn his head, stretch his neck long and pale. “Tell me. Show me.”

John follows his words with a whisper of lips and tongue over Sherlock’s ear. He can’t answer; his nerves buzz like a heady swarm of bees.

John is a doctor, a healer, first. Sherlock wants to hand him the power to heal, to make Sherlock right, make himself right, to make them right together. Response is his only tool here, in this time and place, so when John’s mouth works up his neck, Sherlock lets his body writhe. John sucks at Sherlock’s neck, a little lower this time, and Sherlock’s back arches up, pressing their groins together. It’s…exquisite…the way the constant input of Sherlock’s brain is fading to white noise under John’s hands, John’s mouth, the heavy heated press of his hips, the fading scent of shaving cream and growing earthiness. Sherlock has imagined this, but he never imagined this, how his focus would be both shattered and sharpened. 

John’s working through Sherlock’s buttons, watching his head loll even as tension builds in his back, in his hips. 

Someday soon John wants to get Sherlock naked and just…methodically touch every inch of him, but today, today he goes straight for the trousers, afraid they will die of heart attacks if they don’t touch soon. With Sherlock wriggling under every new touch, it takes some effort to get both pairs of trousers off, but abruptly they’re slotted together like scissors, already undulating gently.

Sherlock’s hands seem fascinated by the juncture between John’s last rib and his abdomen and the place where his hip crests, and keep running between the two, like a strangely intimate examination, probing for his skeleton among the vagaries of soft tissue. It’s a fairly innocent touch, but it carves away John’s restraint and his upper brain until he can’t stand it any more; he slides his right hand to Sherlock’s rump and just pulls, hard, rolling back. Sherlock rolls onto John, which frees both John’s hands to slide in under Sherlock’s pants, against the warm smooth skin of his arse. The sensation huffs breath out of him, and he pants as he works them down, just enough, till he can feel the hot slide of Sherlock’s cock against his belly, then does the same for himself, bunching the fabric as low as he can get it without pushing their bodies apart for even a second. 

Sherlock’s got one arm over their heads and the other hand tucked behind John’s good shoulder, pulling it in to where he’s buried his face in the muscle, sobbing his breath out in time to his rutting. They rock together, a waltz, music that sounds slow but feels fast, music that urges the dancers on, urges Sherlock on, as he feels all the tidy mechanisms of bones and joints and organs spinning out of control. John’s hands pull against his arse, drawing all his wild systems back into order, back into John. Soon, too soon, the scalding slide of flesh is too much, and Sherlock makes a strangled sound as he spills hot and slick between them. Then they’re sliding together freely and John’s hot, so hot, everything in him clenching into one arrow of sensation, pulling pleasure in waves from every far-flung limb.

John has that sensation of sinking again, deep and calm. He half-expects to see fish float by when he opens his eyes, instead of a perfectly normal ceiling, in a perfectly normal room, in a strange house in Chelsea.

They lie together where they’ve fallen for long minutes, drowsing a bit, before John musters the energy to peel one of his hands off Sherlock’s lovely lush arse and run it softly up his back. Latissimus dorsi. He bumps his fingers gently down the spine and back up, naming vertebrae in his head, like saying a rosary. 

Eventually he shifts them and peels himself away, murmuring fond nonsense when Sherlock stirs. The rims of dark lashes lift and Sherlock pins him with a fair facsimile of his usual intent gaze, watchful again, almost wary.

“Be right back.” John can’t bring himself to speak above a whisper. He runs his thumb over Sherlock’s brow before he goes. When he returns, Sherlock hasn’t moved. He cleans them up, first Sherlock, then himself, straightening out their pants. Sherlock slides up to sit cross legged, movements sluggish. 

John ditches the flannel and knees onto the bed to mirror Sherlock’s position, his left hip against Sherlock’s knee, leaning a bit on his left arm. John’s transfixed by the creamy expanse of Sherlock’s chest. He runs his hand under the open shirt to cup Sherlock’s shoulder and nudge the shirt down. “I’ll manage to get you properly naked one of these days soon.” He grins, lets out some of the strangely giddy feeling. Sherlock is here, he’s real, he’s John’s.

Sherlock’s head tips, a bird’s bright movement, his gaze fixed on John’s arm where the tattoo just peeks out of his undershirt. Sherlock watches for reaction while he pushes up the sleeve to reveal more. It’s a little heartbreaking how unsure he looks of his welcome, so John hoists the sleeve the rest of the way, hooking it over his shoulder to reveal the commando sword, ringed in a wreath of holly, with a pair of snakes curled around it like a caduceus. Sherlock runs his fingers over the lines, wreath, sword, snake, then bends forward, with his eyes on John’s face. He mouths the base of the sword first, just rubbing his lips back and forth, dry and warm, raising goosebumps from John’s elbow to his nape. 

The tattoo is finely drawn, not realistic but a skillful cartoon, mostly black, with the snakes filled in acid green. It’s beautiful, Sherlock thinks, and it’s a paradox, like John, John who is both larger and smaller than Sherlock, John who likes boring oatmeal jumpers and carrying an illegal firearm and tea at 5 on the dot and staying awake for days chasing down crooks. John who likes Sherlock, apparently.

Sherlock’s suddenly mad to see, to actually see John and shoves up to his knees to yank at John’s remaining clothes, which surprises John into laughing. Sherlock freezes, unsure and embarrassed; he’s skipped from the bunny slopes of human interaction to the black diamonds, with no stops in between, no practice, and he doesn’t know what to make of this, just sits back on his heels with John’s shirt in his hands and his eyes on John’s face. John reaches back out, immediately.

“No, Sherlock, it’s—I’m happy.” he flicks a thumb over Sherlock’s nipple and watches it tighten, “it makes me laugh at little things.”

Sherlock isn’t totally convinced, but also he’s not about to argue the point when John is gently kissing him and settling back against the pillows, wearing nothing but his pants. 

“Go on then.” There’s a sparkle of fondness in John’s eyes, and his hand is steady on Sherlock’s hip, and there’s a soft knot of flesh at his groin, obvious in his boxer-briefs.

Sherlock leans in slowly, dividing his focus carefully between John’s face and his scarred shoulder at first. He hums softly as his eyes, then fingers, travel the crooked paths of the scarring on John’s front. The center is shiny and slick, each ray raised and rough. He touches it gently, carefully observing the minute responses as he tries to find the borders of his sensation in each direction, mapping it roughly in his mind. He imagines his eyelids as shutters and takes a picture for his mind palace. 

One day he’ll do an even more thorough job, with John’s confirmation. For now, he doesn’t linger, but proceeds methodically, examining at close range every bared inch of skin, humming occasionally, sealing his lips over areas of interest: scars, nipples, a tantalizing dip at each end of his sternum, the place where his arm creases, just at the edge of his underarm. This last makes John gasp.

When he reaches the waist of John’s pants, he pulls at it without ceremony, and John lifts his hips to help, revealing his no longer entirely soft cock sitting just east of another tattoo, low on his groin. Sherlock stops, pants still halfway down John’s thighs, a rare light of surprise in his eyes. 

This is something he didn’t expect, even after living so long with John. The tattoo is smaller than a man’s palm, a cartoon airplane with a black cat sinuously curled around it. The plane looks military, and Sherlock doesn’t keep track of models of planes, but he can look it up later. It has a red white and blue stripe on the side; the cat looks like a cartoon housecat with mischief in its eyes. Sherlock can’t decide whether he’s fascinated that he’s found John’s secret history, or fantastically annoyed that there’s something John has outside of him, outside of them.

His hand strokes over the spot while his mind is spinning off, listing the possible imports of the symbols. He tries, unsuccessfully, to ignore the slow swelling of John’s cock. He lists 17 possibilities, arranges and rearranges them in order of probability. His gaze finally returns to John’s face, which is patient, watching him. “I’ll tell you one day.” John smiles. “Not today.” John pulls Sherlock’s hand up, over the tattoo, over the crest of his hip, lifts it to John’s face, running his lips, then his tongue over the crease in his palm. Sherlock shivers, despite his body being curled into a warmth-conserving ball, one knee against his chest and the other leg tucked under him.

“Jesus.” Was Sherlock always so much at the mercy of sensation? John doesn’t know, because he never really touched Sherlock, before. It’s an oversight he hopes to make up for.

He licks even more wetly, coating Sherlock’s hand, then drawing it down to his cock, swelling with every heartbeat now, and runs their hands together, down, then up again, slotting his other hand between Sherlock’s thighs to play gently with the soft hairs there while Sherlock runs his hand experimentally all around John’s cock, and down to his balls in a slick cup of fingers, and up again, John pushing up to meet him, murmuring encouragement, falling slowly into the thick quiet ocean of _finally._

Sherlock’s pants are still on, boxer briefs in some luxurious fabric that feels like peach skin, and John’s fascinated by the warm, damp weight of his balls, rubbing all around them, dipping behind to his perineum with a gentle but decided pressure. It makes Sherlock squirm and press down with a little whimper, which makes John press up harder with both hand and hips. John runs the edges of his fingernails gently along Sherlock’s inner thighs, the beginnings of his buttocks, the crease at either side of his perineum. Sherlock’s mouth is open and panting, and the input from his hand (silky, slick, hard) and from his groin (hot, achy) keep getting mixed up and making him gasp big breaths and wonder vaguely about his ability to stay upright. He’s never felt anything like knowing that John wants him to want, and then wants to give him what he wants. It’s this knowledge, even more than the physical sensation, that makes his body no longer just a tool for the use of his brain, but throbbing and desperate and animal.

John spits again, this time in his own hand, and brings it down to Sherlock’s, lacing their fingers together and showing him without words how the need snakes from throat to groin, gathering in great coils like a boa constrictor, tightening his chest and his stomach and his arse as he rocks into their hands. Sherlock’s mouth hangs open, so intense is his concentration. When John runs his knuckles from Sherlock’s perineum forward, then flips his hand to stroke up with an open palm, the great hitch of breath and the uncontrolled buck of Sherlock’s hips drive John right over the edge, arching and spinning off into the strange dark. 

When John comes back to himself, Sherlock has curled on his side, watching. John rolls on his side, ignoring the slide of semen down his stomach, and wrestles the pants off Sherlock, who helps very little. He’s still hard, his breathing deep and unsteady. John swipes both hands through the slick fluid on his belly and shifts up to nudge Sherlock onto his back. He watches Sherlock’s face as he puts his hands where they belong, sliding over Sherlock’s overheated skin. Sherlock’s eyes dip half-closed, as he tries valiantly not to squeeze them shut when his spine lengthens and curves. He’s a long parabola, tense as a longbow as John works him in long luxurious strokes, his other hand sliding over every soft sensitized inch of his groin. The look on John’s face is shifting something deep in the uncomfortable fleshy parts of Sherlock’s heart that he shouldn’t be able to feel. 

He struggles against John and with John, beside him and under him and it’s not nearly close enough, they aren’t nearly close enough, before the thin precarious membranes that hold all of him together burst and he comes, thick and messy and ecstatic.

John lays down at his side and puts his mouth against Sherlock’s, nearly kissing him.

They say nothing.


	22. A Visit

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mycroft drops in for a spot of strategy.

By half five, in anticipation of Mycroft’s visit, both men are fully dressed and ensconced in the living room, Sherlock working on his laptop and John pretending he’s re-reading the distressingly thin files for the umpteenth time. He’s actually considering whether he can continue to be mad at someone he can’t keep his hands off of, no matter how much that someone deserves it. The uncomfortable shift in his seat caused by this line of thought brings Sherlock’s piercing gaze up to him. 

Mycroft knocks, and lets himself in.

“Gentlemen.”

“Umbrella-wielding know-it-all.”

“Good to see you’re returning to form, Sherlock.” Privately, John agrees, but he thinks he’d best step in before further escalation.

“Tea, Mycroft?”

“Yes, thank you, John.” He hitches his perfectly pressed trousers and sits. “I won’t belabor the reason for my visit, Sherlock. Believe it or not, I actually have duties and responsibilities other than cleaning up your messes. It’s time to end this imbroglio with Banker and Moran. As we have discussed, the contents of the safe were a dead-end, an overly theatrical ruse entirely intended to get your person out into the open. And the less said about the events of today, the better, but I can assure you, it was Moran’s people, and there will not be a recurrence.”

“And I presume you have a suggestion for how to do so? One that doesn’t involve me ever again seeing a sight like I saw today?”

Mycroft smiles with his mouth, but the rest of his face does not move.

“I do. We need to communicate directly with Banker, to come to an agreement regarding your health and his business. It became clear to me during the…incident this morning that Moran isn’t entirely under Banker’s control. That was supremely risky behavior, and obviously personal in nature. Also, if he had the resources of Banker’s organization behind him, he could likely have managed a more effective team. They were,” He purses his lips, “disappointing. Moran was, as you probably surmised, in a remote location, to minimize risk, which means my team did not get him, although we are tracing him through his internet usage. In any case, I don’t imagine Banker’s really pleased with the situation, which is resource intensive, risky, and high-profile.”

“I’m sorry,” John cuts in, incredulous, “but are we talking about making a deal with the man who’s indirectly responsible for this entire business, including Moriarty almost killing Sherlock and me both?”

“How else do you suggest we achieve a detente? We can dismantle parts of his organization, but it’s rather like a hydra, and the more we prove we’re a threat, the greater the danger.…” He trailed off, eyes going distant in a way very familiar to John.

Sherlock’s sharpen in response. 

“Kelley?”

“I’ll put someone on it.”

“Whoa.” John says with some authority. “Let’s do that again, but out loud this time.”

Sherlock rolls his eyes, but complies. “We need to know how much motivation for the recent threat is coming from Banker, and how much from Moran. After Banker’s experience with Moriarty, it’s likely that he has redundancies—a handler, if you will—for Moran. Moran’s a dangerous hunter, but he’s one man, and he’s been, as they say, promoted past his level of competence. We’ve been assuming that he has Banker’s organization behind him, but there are gradations of motivation in any case. We need to convince Banker that Moran’s bad for business, specifically that between Mycroft and myself, we can make his life very difficult, or easier. If we make a deal with Banker, and Moran’s still after us, Banker could well take care of him for us, if the terms of the deal are adequately clear. The Woman may be able to tell us some about Banker, as she has a connection there as well as with Moran. We suspect the handler and heir apparent is Kelley.”

“We need to either remove Moran or convince Banker to do so,” Mycroft says.

“And Kelley.” Sherlock says, without looking at John. John’s heart swells a little. This, he thinks, is a gift from Sherlock, strange but sweet.

There’s a pause, Mycroft considering.

“We need to make sure Moran receives a very convincing cease-and-desist, and before he’s in custody. Once he and Kelley in custody, we’ll have to be very careful to follow procedure; we don’t want them getting off on any technicality. Particularly if we’re going to extradite them, which would be my strong preference.”

“I can deliver the message.” Sherlock burrs from behind his steepled fingers.

“He knows I’m involved, Kelley saw me on the street.” John interjects, “I should deliver the message.”

“I know what to say, John doesn’t.” Sherlock’s voice is wintry. The brothers look at each other in silence, until Mycroft flicks his eyes toward John. Sherlock’s face clouds over like a North Atlantic squall.

“John should go.” Mycroft says.

John and Sherlock speak at the same time— 

“All right.” 

“Absolutely not.”

Sherlock whips his eyes to John’s, lips pressed into a thin line.

“What’s the point of having a safe house if you don’t stay in it? Didn’t you learn from your last adventure?”

Mycroft cuts in, “John would, of course, have the full support of a retrieval team…”

“And what would they be retrieving?” Sherlock jerks around and storms to the window. 

“Sherlock.” John says it quietly, and Sherlock turns into the physical pull of John. Their eyes meet, and Sherlock’s posture softens, just a hair.

“Sherlock.” Mycroft’s gazing at Sherlock, with an expression that on a less buttoned-up gentleman would be called ‘poleaxed.’ There’s an uncomfortable pause.

“No need to stick your long nose in, Mycroft, where it doesn’t belong.”

“James Kelley.” John cuts back in. “Are we sure he’s the heir to the position? Are we sure he’s pulling Moran’s strings? Maybe we don’t need to wake that sleeping dog; if we believe Moran’s out of Banker’s control, why don’t we take just him out?” There’s a pregnant little pause as everyone considers this, which is clearly a concession on John’s part. 

Sherlock looks at him condescendingly. “John.” He draws the syllable out. “Don’t be ridiculous.” He turns to Mycroft, “We will go together, and we will take them both. We can use Irene to confirm any information we get from Banker.”

“I don’t think we can trust her any more than we trust Banker.” John’s eyes are tight.

“She owes me rather a large favor.” 

John and Mycroft both stare at Sherlock until he’s itching between his shoulder blades and turns back to the window to study Mycroft’s subtle security measures.

“I still don’t trust her.” John says flatly.

“I don’t trust anyone.” Mycroft grimaces, “But we have several sources of information, so we can cross-check.”

John meets Sherlock’s eyes, but responds to Mycroft. “If we’re headed in that direction, and Sherlock and I need to be in on the planning.”

“And we need the data to do it with.” Sherlock snipes.

Mycroft studies them.

“I’ll ask Anthea to transfer everything we have on Captain Moran and Mr. Kelley to you, Sherlock. We’ll reconvene tomorrow, after you’ve had time to consider. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve had a rather trying day. John, if you could accompany me to the door?”

Sherlock snorts, and John shoots him another look.

If the day’s activities have left Mycroft a bit waspish, it is certainly understandable. John follows him silently to the landing, with Sherlock’s glare boring into his back. They pause, Mycroft with both hands on the ridiculous umbrella. 

“Going to threaten me with death by torture if I hurt him?” John tilts his head.

"I think that can remain unsaid, don't you?" An unpleasant smile flicks on and off of Mycroft's face, then his expression narrows in a way that can only be called constipated.  "You have made your bed, John, and now you must lie in it. No, I simply wanted to be first, and probably the only, to welcome you to the Holmes family." He tips his head back as if peering myopically through invisible granny-glasses, and sticks out his hand for a shake. John obliges, though he's a bit wrong-footed. "My brother is, as you know, difficult, but not entirely without reason. There will come a time when you have questions he cannot or will not answer. I hope you'll consider me as you would a brother when that happens."  John flashes on his relationship with Harry and can't contain a little huff of amusement. 

"I already have questions he won't answer," John says quietly, "but that's our business, not yours."

"Until it isn't.  Tomorrow, Dr. Watson."

He shuts the door behind him with a soft snick.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay on this one guys, it's been an exciting week in the non-internet world...but now I've gotten a couple-three chapters queued up and ready to go for this week. Hope you enjoy!


	23. Negotiations

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sherlock and John talk; Sherlock and Banker talk. The plan is cemented.

“Bribes this time, or just threats?”

John snorts and snicks the door closed. “Just threats.” 

Sherlock’s still at the window, hands linked behind his back.

“You’re being awfully, ah…not so adversarial, with Mycroft,” John says.

Sherlock tightens his jaw in a way John’s come to associate with him being unable to say something. John’s not sure if there’s a specific reason he’s being downright cooperative with Mycroft, or if Sherlock just isn’t quite his old self, might never be his old self.

“I’d rather his staff do the work and we eat takeout and watch telly, in this particular instance.” Sherlock sends him a sharp little look. Though there’s nearly a neon sign, and Mycroft knew instantly, John is so obtuse, apparently he doesn’t know. He doesn’t know that Sherlock has become risk-averse, these last few months, that he’s noticed his own failings in a microscopic detail, ego and panic and hyperfocus and arrogance and…

John has crossed the room to be near him, but now doesn’t quite seem to know what to do. They look at each other for a long moment before John lays his hand, open and flat, just over Sherlock’s left kidney. 

For the first time, he sounds unsure. “We should talk about this, Sherlock. About. You. Us.” 

“Why? We didn’t discuss murder before Jefferson Hope.”

John ducks his head, quick and awkward, and half-smiles, at his own—well, Sherlock would call it stupidity—and it freezes Sherlock on the spot. Hope blooms in him, small and prickly and unfamiliar, because, just for a moment, he sees his John. It’s his John who makes that gesture, not camo-and-rifles John, not white-coats-and-stethoscopes John, not the John who always lets some ridiculous woman have the first cab, or the John that meets his mates for pub night. His John, John before, and John after; the mysterious, familiar John who now makes him shiver with want.

Sherlock bends to meet him. John’s mouth on Sherlock’s mouth is alchemy, dark desperate secret magic, turning Sherlock into something new, something he doesn’t recognize. He defies the laws of physics.

***

"Mr. Banker, Sherlock Holmes," Sherlock's standing at the window again. "I think we have a mutual problem." He can hear the coldness in his voice. So can John, who's watching him from the kitchen door. He isn't paying enough attention to the nuance of Banker's response, because John's gaze is heavy over the shoulders of Sherlock's white shirt. Sherlock whirls and stalks off to his bedroom with the phone.

When he reappears, John’s at the worktop, fussing with tea bags and cups. Sherlock keeps walking until he can feel the warmth of John’s body through the thin cotton of his shirt, crowds into his space in a way that, before John, he only did to make someone uncomfortable, or because they were in his way. John kisses him once, brief but firm.

John’s supportive. Affectionate. But though he’s laughed with Sherlock, an old habit, and had sex with Sherlock, a new habit, there’s a reserve Sherlock doesn’t remember. John is both softer and harder than before, more physical with Sherlock but less open.

When Sherlock pictured coming home, it was never like this. It's hard-edged and crisply in focus; John has let him come home, physically, has declared his affection, emotionally, but the intimacy they shared has been altered. It's only then he realizes that it's not just John's presence, but his unconditional welcome that made it home. 

It’s understandable, but Sherlock’s chest tightens when he considers that this might be the new John, forever. But then, he is a new Sherlock. His chest never tightened like this, before. His body was never so involved in his thoughts. This, too, must be down to John, who seems to have taken over piloting several of his formerly autonomic functions.

John must know he’s somewhere else; he kisses him again, deeper this time, eyes open and on Sherlock’s. Sherlock can feel his body responding, but John just runs his thumb down Sherlock’s iliac crest, squeezes, and says, “What’d Banker say, then?”

They sit at the table with their tea.

“I am going to meet him. In person.”

John’s face darkens. “You realize that that accomplishes for Banker exactly what we hope to accomplish with Moran.”

“But I will get more information this way.” He believes the risk to be minimal and the potential rewards significant.

“It’s always the case with you, isn’t it?” It’s not fond.

“I…I’ll be perfectly safe, John. I’ll need some help from Mycroft’s people, but I can’t imagine he won’t be willing to give it.” John looks like he’s torn between throwing something and handcuffing Sherlock to something. “I have a plan, John,” he rushes on, “Trust me.”

John’s jaw tightens, and Sherlock realizes his blunder, too late. The look in John’s eyes is dark and unreadable before he turns and walks away, disappearing into his room.

At half-past midnight, John comes out without a word and collects Sherlock from the sofa, hauling him by the hand back to his room, and bundles him into bed. He pets at his hair and his neck and the corners of his eyes till Sherlock is deep asleep, warm and heavy and reassuringly real, drooling slightly on his shoulder.

****

Sherlock emerges in the charcoal suit and a pale lavender shirt. They make him look a bit washed out, which he can’t imagine Mycroft, or rather, Anthea, didn’t know, but he hopes that this will appear as weakness and will be an advantage in his discussion with Banker. John is in the living room, standing at parade rest, which nearly always means he feels threatened. Sherlock adjusts his collar, eyes on John's face. He wants...he isn't sure what he wants. He wants John to know that he's trying to come back. That he damn well will come back. He’s aware he hasn’t exactly earned trust.

He takes one abortive half-step in John's direction. His chest is heavy and full. John's face is alive with some emotion Sherlock doesn't recognize. Eyes still on John's, he strides to him and bends his knee like a knight pledging fealty. John's eyes widen and his hands blunder forward, one landing on Sherlock's shoulder, the other caught in his left hand.

"John," he burrs. John steps into him and pulls his head against the warm bend of his hip.

"God, Sherlock. Just." He swallows. "Just, come back safe."

It's nearly silent for a long minute, then the downstairs door buzzes.

Sherlock yanks his shirtsleeves back into perfect alignment with his jacket and sends John a last, opaque, slanting look, and sweeps out.

***

It's the toughest 57 minutes of John's life. It's tougher than losing his first patient, it's tougher than being shot, it's tougher, even, than watching Sherlock fall.  That had happened so fast that his mind never had a chance to tell his body he couldn't stop it.

John couldn’t stop this either; ultimately, he’d had to concede to the combined will and logic of the Holmes brothers and allow Sherlock to go alone. Logic isn’t exactly John's highest priority at this point; his brain knew he couldn’t win, and every other cell twitched to follow Sherlock. He hasn’t wanted a drink this way for four days

For the first 17 minutes, he consoles himself that Sherlock's in the car. He's in a car with bulletproof glass. After that, he winds up sitting on the floor, with his knees drawn up, propping his head on his hands. He doesn't move for an eon. Then he looks up. It's been 21 minutes.

***

Sherlock stares out the car window, carefully tucking away the softnesses that have bulged out of his exoskeleton since he came home. It's ridiculous, and he's ruthless with himself. Sentiment is what got them all into this mess. It’s John’s safety, and his own, that depends on him right now. That’s a compelling reason. His jaw tightens, and that great calm descends, where nothing matters but solutions.

A great web of interconnections comes into focus in his head—Banker, Irene, Moran, Kelley, drugs, money, pride, obsession, love.

Love, such a strange player, the joker in the deck. It makes people behave strangely, and Moran has behaved so strangely that Sherlock suspects there was something that passed for love between him and Moriarty. Love is always a lever, and as Archimedes famously said, a lever long enough can move the world. Sherlock is hopeful that he can use the lever to get Moran out of his business.

By the time he's using the knocker on the somber dark wood door, he feels almost like himself again, the Sherlock who'd become so contained and collected, because it was necessary. Tantrums, he'd discovered in his time away, were a luxury. He buttons his second jacket button.

"Sherlock Holmes to see Mr. Banker."

He's ushered without incident into the lobby, then a private meeting room at Mycroft's unbelievably old-fashioned gentlemen's club. The public areas appear to be littered with gentlemen left over from the Edwardian area, some reading actual, physical papers, most nursing hot tea, and a precious few smoking sweet-smelling pipe tobacco, which makes Sherlock's mouth water. 

The inner room is a small parlor, complete with unlit fireplace and fusty furniture. On one of the armchairs sits an unremarkable man of medium build and medium coloring, with small, regular features and a very buttoned-up suit in a noncommittal dun. He looks more like a junior accountant destined never to be promoted than the cool mind and iron hand behind a worldwide criminal network. 

"Mr. Holmes."  He does not rise. His eyes follow Sherlock to a low leather club chair that creaks loudly when he sits. The whole experience is distastefully similar to visiting Mycroft to beg a favor. 

"Mr. Banker." He fastens his gaze on the man's face, nudging all his plans and probabilities based on the man's body language and presentation.

They are silent for long moments, each rather wanting the other to start.  Finally, Banker gives in.  
 "I am a busy man, and arranging this meeting was rather a disruption. Let us begin." He smiles a small, insincere smile.

"I believe," Sherlock pulls at his very slightly misaligned cuff, "that I've been something of a nuisance to your organization lately." 

Banker’s patently false smile returns, and it makes his eyes slit nearly shut. Sherlock's irresistibly reminded of a snake, though he has no logical reason for the association.

"I have no desire to continue to be a nuisance, and I'm sure you have none to be annoyed. I have, however, a problem. I believe it’s a mutual problem, in the person of a retired member of her majesty's military. As I'm sure you know, he's been singularly…focused…on me.” Sherlock pauses, lets the silence encourage Banker to respond. He is silent for longer than is socially acceptable. Finally, Banker shifts in his chair, dragging the trousers of the expensive and dull dove grey suit up slightly, revealing a very small slice of winter-pale leg.

“I’m aware.” 

“Are you…dissatisfied with the situation?”

“There are reasons for my maintaining Mr. Moran’s position as it is, despite the…inconveniences.” Sherlock knows this; he’s heard from Irene that Kelley is controlled mostly by proximity to Moran, and that, while he’s positioned as the successor to Moran’s position, it would be totally inadvisable from a management perspective to allow him to actually succeed Moran.

They parry and riposte, but eventually reach an agreement. Banker will give up Moran and Kelley’s schedule, Sherlock will cease his wholesale war on Banker’s organization and, (through Mycroft, though he’s not mentioned) ensure that Moran and Kelley do not trouble Banker’s organization for a delightfully long time. 

Sherlock pictures extradition, in detail, with a little frisson of delight.


	24. Intermezzo

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sherlock considers the problems at hand.

After giving Mycroft an account of his oblique negotiation with Banker, they don’t know much more than they did before. Mycroft told them, in effect, not to worry their pretty heads about it, which resulted in an actual growl from Sherlock. 

An hour later, he’s still in the chair, in thinking pose. 

“Um, excuse the small minds, but what is there to think about, exactly, Sherlock?”

He opens his eyes, the better to look on John with absolute pity for his stupidity. This feels strangely normal to John.

“We’ve got information from Banker, and Irene, so I’m considering it. You needn’t look like you’ve sucked a lemon every time I say her name, John.”

“Forgive me if I’m a little sensitive about someone who tries to take advantage of you like that. She played you like a fine violin.”

“Perhaps I was wiling to be played.”

“Jesus christ, Sherlock.” John doesn’t even know what to say to that.

“At any rate, it was an interesting experience.”

“Interesting. Really. Having a woman…Okay, you know what, I was jealous of the way you responded to her, and I didn’t like her attitude, and for once, I was right and you were wrong. Let’s leave it at that then, shall we?”

Jealousy. This, like loving someone, is a major risk factor for crimes. And Sherlock has no doubt John is capable of crime, which is part of what makes him interesting. 

No, Irene was interesting. John is necessary.

He’s willing to concede John’s rightness, this once, to get the rest of that bargain. He nods his head, once.

“My brother,” there’s an unspoken and derogatory adjective implied, “says he’s going to ‘take care of it’, and I’m sure he will from his perspective, but our priorities are slightly different. He wants to be able to claim he’s sidelining domestic terrorists, rather than horning in on the Met’s territory, and he wants to justify his expense account this month as appropriate to that, rather than as a favor to his brother.”

“And what do you want?” John asks quietly.

John keeps pushing at every angle of vulnerability, as if he wants to extract a grand promise that Sherlock will never leave, never screw up, never disappoint him again, never want to disappoint him for reasons Sherlock himself doesn’t even understand. 

John’s still looking at him steadily, waiting for an answer. He finally says, “I want to go home.” He pauses, because it’s actually physically difficult to say what comes next. “Together.”

It doesn’t make John smile.

Sherlock had been so relieved at first to be near John again, he’d hardly noticed that John’s ready laugh, his warm and open approval of Sherlock, has gone missing. Even when they were…Sherlock doesn’t really have a word for it; nothing he’s heard feels quite accurate…even then, John hadn’t been really relaxed. He’d smiled, laughed, and never let go.

Sherlock wants him to smile again, easy and secret, the smile he doesn’t share with Lestrade, or his vacuous girlfriends, or his obnoxious mates, or Mycroft. Plans used to be Sherlock’s strong point, but he’s drawing a complete blank on how to make that happen.

He resigns himself to Banker and Moran and Kelley, a puzzle he might actually be able to solve.


	25. Irene's House

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sherlock and John have meetings with old friends.

Irene's offered a degree of detail that makes Sherlock wonder what favor she was going to ask him for next, but thus far it appears she wants to get far away from Moran and him being dead or incarcerated would certainly accomplish that. 

Her information agrees in nearly every particular with what they got from Banker. 

A more-or-less frontal assault is the agenda, complete with some in-person intimidation from Sherlock, who claims to have the perfect lever to stop Moran’s obviously personal pursuit of him. He manages to convince Mycroft, and is scheduled to enter the house with 12 minutes to find, threaten, and then get the hell out of the government team’s way. 

Though John and Sherlock aren’t exactly swat team material, each flatly refuses to leave the other behind, so here they are.

The team will be arriving at 5:30. It’s 5:17 when John and Sherlock approach the back of the house. Weak sunlight is breaking through patchy clouds over the stately old center hall Georgian with the generous back garden opening onto a service alley.

When a motor sounds at the end of the alley, they duck between a foul-smelling set of bins and a sickly sweet rose of sharon. There's a warmth down Sherlock's arm; it’s John’s arm at his side.

Their destination is a gracefully symmetrical old home, with long old-fashioned windows and french doors and stone steps leading on to a rear stoop. They silently linger beside the small garage while Sherlock considers their entry and John, ever practical, considers possible exits. Sherlock squeezes his hand once, his eyes just a smudge in the pale face in the twilight.  

Then he's off, and John behind him, silently in the back door, into an afterthought of a dark kitchen. Sherlock's hand disappears into his coat and comes out with a smallish flat black metal rod which extends with a flick of the wrist and clicks into place, turning into about 30 inches of slim metal which looks very efficient. The old Sherlock, John thinks with a twitch of the lips, would have used a broad sword.

When, momentarily, the click of high heels comes down the hallway, they wait, on either side of the doorway. Irene swirls through the kitchen door hauling a gigantic purse, and Sherlock jerks her through the door by her bicep. "I thought we had a treaty." He hisses.

"I'm not cheating, I'm like Switzerland, darling."

"Not for long," John mutters.

“Take the documents and get out." Sherlock shoves her toward the door.  She pauses.

“How do you know—oh, well, darling…I’ve left you a present. All trussed up like Christmas goose, on the second floor. I know how you boys like goose. Or is it gander?” She smiles and it’s just at the intersection between vicious and impish. “Kelley’s in the basement. I’m afraid he’s prowling about loose.” Her face makes it clear she’s actually unhappy about this, though not nearly as unhappy as John looks. “And we, darling,” She taps her way back to Sherlock, puts a small hand on his lapel, “Are even.” On her tiptoes, she meets his eyes as she gently kisses him on the mouth. She darts a sly look at John. “Or maybe I’m ahead.”

John holds his temper till she swishes her way out the back, then pulls Sherlock in close with one fist. “God damn it. We have to control Kelley.”

They have a furious whispered conversation, in which John makes the fair point that he actually has some experience with clearing a house, and also a gun, and that Sherlock has to do what he has to do upstairs to pull this thing off. Sherlock’s lungs and his ribs and the solid lump in his belly have been getting colder and colder since Irene said Kelley’s name and he realized how this conversation would go. He’s going to go upstairs and do what basically amounts to a small scene in a play while John goes down the stairs, into what could be mortal danger.

John must see some of this on his face, because he pauses and cups a hand at Sherlock’s jaw, warm and solid. “I need you to trust me. I’ll see you in a few minutes.” Sherlock grits his teeth and turns away, mouth bitter with the irony; he’d asked John the same thing. He whirls back to fist his hand in John’s shirt and haul him in for a hard kiss. Then he turns on his heel and heads for the stairs.

***

John takes a breath before opening the basement door, trying to dismiss the ghost of Sherlock’s fierce kiss, and settling into a head space that’s all about the present. 

He knows the layout of the house; they’ve had diagrams and photographs from Irene. The stairs descend into a subterranean version of the center hall, with three doors opening off it. The back left is a utility closet and laundry, the front left a storage room, the front right an office area. He can see most of the central room just by opening the door. It’s empty, and the door’s open and light is on in the office space. Still, John's methodical, even if his pulse is pounding. He works as he's done so many times on patrols, keeping against the walls, sweeping the dark corners with his eyes. The gun’s comforting but far from a guarantee of success.

When he finally turns around the edge of the doorframe, crouched low, there’s a flurry of motion in the room as Kelley kicks back from his chair to his feet, then stillness as he freezes, hands away from his body. John shuffles forward a couple of steps, rising to stand.  

"John Watson. Here we are, then." John's right hand is under his left in a teacup grip, very steady, but he knows it's not forever. He will need to do something soon, or his protesting shoulder will fail him.

"Let's wait for him, shall we? Because where you go, he goes."  A cruel little smile plays on his lips. "Let's just wait, soldier. And let me remind you, shooting a man without provocation is frowned upon. Unless it's under Her Majesty's orders. You always were big on orders.”

John isn’t surprised by the clatter of the team coming in upstairs, but Kelley is, and John watches for the momentary distraction on Kelley's face. 

Then he shoots him. 

He hits Kelley’s shoulder, as planned, and Kelley staggers to his knees. John knocks him the rest of the way down and straddles the wounded man, wrestling him down to pin him on his back, both arms at his sides, clamped between John's knees. John presses on the wound; from a distance it would look like first aid. He presses harder, till the man squirms with pain. Unnervingly, his eyes stay on John, even as they water and little noises start to escape him.

"Hurts, doesn't it?" John says it quietly, conversationally, leaning close as he applies more pressure. "But you'll live. You'll live, and you will never touch him, directly or indirectly. You will never harm a hair on his head, you won’t even give him a mean look, or I will end you. Do you understand?"

Kelley looks up at him, caught between defiance and helpless pain. He whimpers wordlessly. John's eyes are hard, but Sherlock can’t see them from where he stands, frozen in the doorway.

"Do you understand?"

Kelley finally nods. John lets up, now maintaining clinically appropriate pressure on the wound.

They stare at each other silently. John’s ears are still ringing, and god help him, but he’s wishing he’d killed him outright.

People are rushing into the room, calling for medical assistance.

"Any of that yours?" the medic's looking him over dubiously.

"No." John's usual bonhomie is completely absent as he grabs a towel out of the med kit and wipes down his hands carefully. His eyes are still dark, and still locked on Kelley. 

He stands with his rear against the desk and the comforting weight of his gun at his back while they carry Kelley away, and finally, finally, John looks at Sherlock, who's been standing silently by.  

John's eyes are burning, fierce and unfamiliar.


	26. Second Reunion

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sherlock almost apologizes.

Sherlock is hustled off by a pair of bruisers who look to be under specific orders to look after him. He goes willingly, hoping for a little bubble of peace among the Swiss-efficient movement of Mycroft’s team.

John will be questioned. His gun will be confiscated. There will be an inquiry, perhaps.   
Sherlock stands in the garden and watches the door. A featureless young man in a dark suit approaches him. “I’m here to take you back to the safe house, sir.”  
Sherlock ignores him. He finds about 40% of people go away more or less immediately when ignored, so it’s a good first pass, when he has the patience for it.

This one persists. “You need to go back to the house, sir.” The large man next to Sherlock, one of the original pair, shifts next to him. 

“I’m waiting for John.”

“Dr. Watson will be several hours, sir. You need to return to a safe location.”

Sherlock blinks owlishly at him. “Not until I see him.” He turns back to the door, dismissing the young man, who sighs and heads into the house. Perhaps fifteen minutes later, John steps out. His eyes are still dark, his mouth still drawn into a flat, unforgiving line.

On their first night together, John had killed Jefferson Hope, then laughed and gone out for Chinese. Unilateral decision making at its finest, calm, confident, and absolutely in character. 

But John had never intended for Hope to suffer. Sherlock had; he had crushed the dying man’s wounded shoulder under his foot to get what he wanted—knowledge. But John would have been horrified by his actions. 

His John. John, who’d just dug his hands into a man’s wound with intent to harm, had done so without showing a shred of regret. 

Because of Sherlock.

As a matter of average human response, he assumes, he should feel guilty that he’s turned a perfectly gentle healer into something fierce like this, but Sherlock’s remorseless as always, full of a heady mix of savage satisfaction and absolute awe that John has done this on his behalf. Now John’s walking toward him, so he lets it show on his face, where John can see it. John steps in close. “All right?”

Sherlock hums and quirks his mouth into a smile. It’s probably inappropriate, but that hasn’t exactly stopped him before.

John’s eyes crinkle at the corners in return.

Sherlock tilts his head to indicate they should walk a bit away from his minders. He has something to say, and he’s not sure how to say it. He clears his throat.

“You don’t trust me.” He says. John looks down as though it’s him who should be ashamed. “It’s fair. What I did was. Selfish. I might have tried something different if the cost of failure hadn’t been your life. Failure was unthinkable. I was…afraid.” The word is unfamiliar in his mouth; it seems to coarsen the fibers of his throat until afraid is gripped in the tight fist of his swallowing. “You understand.” It’s not quite a question, but it’s a request for confirmation all the same.

John is in front of him, calm and perfect in his John-ness, wearing his brown jumper and keeping his eyes on Sherlock. The featureless young agent is fidgeting a few yards away. John nods, one incline of his chin. “Sometimes failure is not worth living through.” He rests his warm hand on Sherlock’s shoulder for a moment; it’s a masculine gesture, approval and reassurance in one, something Sherlock’s seen a thousand times between mates. “Now, go on with the nice agents, and let me get finished up here.” He smiles and turns to nod at the agents in question. His spine is straight as he goes in to the house.

 

***

John enters and it’s dark, and absolutely quiet. He’s exhausted, after giving statements and working with Mycroft’s people. They’d sent Sherlock home hours earlier, and he’d gone ominously quietly. 

John methodically checks: kitchen, living room, Sherlock’s room, loo. Finally, in his own room, he finds Sherlock, lying in the dark on his bed, knees hitched up and palms pressed together in a tense horizontal thinking pose.

John steps in and closes the door behind him. He can’t help the smile that’s blooming past his worry. John’s fondness—no, his love, call it by its name—for this man is irresistible, as it has been from the very beginning. Sherlock’s eyes open, and though he doesn’t turn his head, he smiles too.

John clicks on the bedside lamp. The light is warm and Sherlock doesn’t look so pale under it, though the rims under his eyes are still dark with exhaustion. The bed dips under John’s weight and he lays a palm over Sherlock’s heart. 

“Let’s go home.”

“After.” Sherlock growls. He grips John’s collar and tugs. 

John goes with the pull, planting a hand on either side of Sherlock’s shoulders and looking down. Sherlock’s skin is golden in the lamplight, his brows fine and dark, his cheekbones in high relief.

“Tell me what you want.” John says.

A great heave of nerves rises in Sherlock’s chest, and he tries not to give it away. Finally John’s eyes are too hard to look at and Sherlock has to turn his head, as far away as it will go, toward the dark corner of the bed. He squeezes his eyes shut as his brain coughs up every permutation he’s considered in the last few days, every hot, horrid, tender, shameful thing he wants from John. Though he doesn’t think of the sex, per se, as shameful, he can practically feel John’s feelings where their skin touches, and that’s impossible, and humiliating, for some inexplicable reason. Worse, he’s very much afraid John can feel his, all these alien too-big feelings, raw and unintelligible. 

John just lifts a hand and fits it over his cheekbone-eye-forehead, and whispers, “All right then, all right. It’s all right.” He turns and lays himself alongside Sherlock, awkward because Sherlock’s forgotten to let go of his shirt. John reclines on one hip and one elbow, solid against Sherlock’s side. He works Sherlock’s buttons, and Sherlock tries to think about something simple, not about how John’s biorhythms and his warmth and his backlit face are filling gaps in Sherlock’s brain and his body that were hollowed out before he’d reached his 18th birthday. He puts his fingers on John’s neck and counts John’s heartbeats and knows John knows he’s doing it, even if he doesn’t know why, and that John doesn’t mind. John can handle undiluted Sherlock. It hurts, deep at the base of his spine, the way John’s intense eyes hurt in Irene’s basement and John’s strong hands hurt in the alley where they met again.

Sherlock has to stop thinking.

He has to let go so John can help him pull off his shirt. John shifts his weight to wedge a knee between Sherlock’s, warm and solid.

“How about this?” John whispers against the soft skin of Sherlock’s throat, “I want to see you, and I want to taste you.” He’s guessing, has been guessing all along, will keep guessing, about what Sherlock needs, and what he can handle. One day, he knows, he’ll guess wrong, but he prays it’s not tonight.

John rubs the soft skin of his eye socket then the sharp stubble of his beard against the point of Sherlock’s shoulder, shifting down a couple of inches before putting his mouth to the skin that’s warm gold in the lamplight, taught over bone, showing too much of the structure underneath. 

Sensation pinballs around Sherlock’s brain as John’s mouth seals over his bicep, the bend of his elbow, his nipple, the parabola of ribcage. He bites and sucks and licks, and it’s gentle and harsh and perfect. John blows cool air over heated skin and trails his fingers in his tongue’s path, leaving behind aches that make no sense.

John reaches Sherlock’s waistband and quickly peels him out of his trousers, kneeling with one of Sherlock’s feet in his lap, running his thumb over the sensitive skin at the arch and behind the ankle joint while he looks up right at Sherlock’s face. “Sherlock,” he whispers. Sherlocks shifts restlessly but doesn’t open his eyes, doesn’t turn his face to John. “Sherlock, look. Please look.” Even though miles of Sherlock’s achy skin are between them, when Sherlock wrestles his eyelids up, John is looking right at his face. 

John strips quickly, with Sherlock’s eyes on him, and comes back to rest between his legs, puts his mouth down to Sherlock’s hip. Sherlock is tethered in his body, feeling the small vibrations of needy noise in his throat and the reflexive tightening of his arse and stomach with each pull of John’s mouth against the soft skin at the base of Sherlock’s belly. “Brilliant,” John whispers reverently, “Amazing.” 

John tucks an arm under Sherlock’s thigh and reaches up clasp his hand, hard and grounding. He shifts his lips to the center till he can nudge Sherlock’s cock gently, breathing in warm and aroused and opening his mouth, suddenly desperate, to run it up Sherlock’s cock, which is thick and heavy and twitching under his lips and tongue.

Sherlock floats in a strangely lucid state. John’s mouth is hot and slick. The duvet is scratchy under his scapulae and John’s hip is impossibly smooth under Sherlock’s foot, and the bed shifts minutely as John’s back tightens to thrust into nothing, which makes Sherlock lightheaded with arousal. 

John moves up to his tip and does…something with his tongue and it makes Sherlock’s hips jerk, running the soft-hard tip of his cock up into John’s mouth, once, twice, three times. Sherlock’s vision goes starry. John’s pulling spikes of pleasure right up from the root of Sherlock’s body, pulling them through an impossibly small space into the safe hollow of John’s mouth, where the pleasure rocks through John and comes out diffuse, in pants and groans and the convulsive tightening of John’s hands on Sherlock’s skin.

When Sherlock can focus enough to take information in again, John’s mouth is sucking and biting at Sherlock’s hip adductors while his hand and his hips jerk together, down in the near-dark, not even a dozen times before Sherlock can feel John latch on with a groan, and stripe wetness up the back of Sherlock’s thigh.

John’s breath is churning out, something between laugh and sob, as he crawls up and collapses on Sherlock. He wedges both forearms under Sherlock’s shoulders to cup his head in both hands, eyes still dark and full of something Sherlock’s forced to admit is welcome sentiment. It’s the most unusual kind.

They kiss, sated and sloppy, and fall asleep, tangled together in the strange bed that’s outside their lives, far from Baker Street.


	27. Epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sherlock and John return to doing what they do best.

DI Lestrade had called Sherlock himself, but he’s still vaguely surprised when Sherlock shows up, with John in tow, as if nothing’s happened. Lestrade stands on the stoop and watches as they get out of a cab. They are very much the same, and different. John looks tired, worn, but still sharper, somehow, than before. Perhaps it’s just been a while, but he moves differently, with a little rebound to each step, the kind of walk athletes have when their sport is more about power than speed. His jumper is a crisp burgundy, and his shoulders are square, challenging. 

And Sherlock, god, thin as a wraith and wearing exactly his old uniform, but with frightfully short hair, just a brush of sable against his skull. It makes him look like a sighe lord, arrogant and powerful and other. Lestrade doesn’t hear Sally’s greeting, but Sherlock’s resonant voice carries when he says, “It’s nice to see you as well, Sally,” with just a hint of extra sibilance on the S. He struts onward, keen as ever, but just as he reaches the gate, he turns. He makes eye contact with John, who’s looking back, mild and stubborn and solid.

The interaction reminds Lestrade of a trip to the country he took as a kid; he’d seen a trainer gentle a horse with a look like that, and a hand on his neck. 

Then Sherlock turns, face haughty again, and the moment is gone. Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson are back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That's it (for now)...There are two more short stories in this universe coming soon.
> 
> Thanks, everyone, for reading, commenting and leaving kudos! It's been so. awesome. to hear everyone's thoughts.


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